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Think you have to spend endless hours in the gym to get a hard body?
Not so. Chris Lydon shows you how to do less, but get more.
| Toughen Up |
Oxygen #62, pg. 90 |
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By Lisa Nicholson
If you want to put some muscular curve on your upper body and tone your
legs and buns, Chris Lydon’s version of the Navy SEAL workout is the
way to do it. “I had some girlfriends from my hockey team that got
stuck on it last summer,” says Chris, “and you should have seen
the way they looked after a couple of months. They looked incredible.”
The first segment of the workout is a 20-minute circuit. Chris does one
set of pushups (either the floor or the bench variation), then immediately
moves to one set of crunches and then does a set of pullups right away.
She continues without stopping until she has completed six sets of these
three exercises. Here are two versions of one of her favorites, the weighted
squat. “I do the wide ones to start with because they’re easier
– they incorporate more glutes – and finish with the narrow
ones,” she says.
Did
you say less cardio?
If you’re not a cardio junkie, you’ll be happy to hear that
the circuit training takes the place of half a cardio workout. “The
fact that you’re not taking any rest means you’re staying within
an aerobic zone the whole time,” says Chris. “And it’s
a rep range where you’re hitting the fast twitch [muscles] as well
as the slow twitch so you’re not sacrificing stamina.”
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WIDE AND NARROW SQUAT WITH BAR
Wide squat: Stand
with your legs slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Hold a weighted
bar across your shoulders. Bend your knees to a 90-degree angle, making
sure you keep your chest up and your head directly over your knees throughout
the move. Return to the start position. Do four sets of 20 reps with a 30
second rest between sets.
Narrow squat:
Change to a lighter weight and do the same exercise, but with your legs
together. Do four sets of 20 reps with a 30 second rest between sets.
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To read the full article, pick
up a copy of Oxygen
#62
today!
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