You know I have been talking about training a lot this week (and I have some good examples coming your way, too) so there’s no need to switch it up now and talk about something else. I think I hear something—wait, I think it’s a dead horse being beaten in the back room. Poor fella.

Ok, all kidding aside, Bertha is back in the gym and we need to hit her up for some more stuff.

I have been focusing on switching up your training and providing your body with some much needed fuel for change (that’s what switching up provides) so that you can either increase your fat burning or move through a plateau. I have already spoken of using confusion or demand and within demand I spoke of tempo. So I have put some stuff out there for you to sort of chew on and I am going to add to it today with functional training.

This is really being addressed to my major “gym-heads” who just can’t seem to walk away from the 3, 4 or 5 day splits.

I love a good split, you love a good split, everyone at some time in their lives has really enjoyed a good split but for the love of all that is holy…DIVORCE THE SPLIT. Ok, I’m sorry…I’m back now. Took a sip of water and walked around a bit. ;o)

Changing up the way you work out between full body and body parts is a great way to add to your training tool box without having to think too hard. Now say you are not ready to fully adopt the full body routine and giving up the split almost gives you hives. How about adding some functional moves between your current split to add a new dimension of caloric burn to your workout? Bodyweight exercises and functional based moves add a level of intensity that is not always present in every weight workout.

Say you are doing a push/pull circuit. Let’s take a vertical push and vertical pull routine. Although you can kill yourself in it, you are not going to burn as many calories as you would if you moved your entire body. BUT, you are not willing to give up your back and shoulder day or your chest and shoulder day and etc. SO, let’s have some fun with those days instead. Take your OH Press/Lat pull down superset and make it a tri-set by adding on a set of burpees. First, you just added a “wind-sucker” to your set so you’ll be sucking wind in no time. Two, you just added another demand to your shoulders so you’ll be feeling that. And three, you’re going to round out the look of the body because functional moves use every muscle, not just this little itty bitty one over here when you move your arm like so.hehe I’m being a wise guy but what I am saying is that functional exercises round out the muscles by hitting them from every direction. You are not frontal plane only or sagittal plane only. You are all 3 planes of motion depending on the move and that’s what we’re really shooting for isn’t it?

Moves such as transverse lunges, burpees, pike push ups, weighted bridges, split jumps, unsupported rows with movement, rotation of any kind and so on can be strategically placed in your workouts to add difficulty, a cardio deficit and variety. Now that boring split isn’t so boring anymore and you are hitting every part of your body without giving up your split or sacrificing too much extra energy. Make sure that the exercises you add do not add much in the way of time. While I want you to experience something new with your workout, I am still a huge advocate of ‘get in and get out’. If you make a 40 min. workout into an hour plus because you added too much stuff in, that’s not cool.

So Bertha has now learned to lift a bit heavier, slow it down a tad and add a functional component into her splits for an added benefit. Soon we’ll be tackling that loose skin on the belly… OH BOY!;o)