Military Muscle: Combine exercises to maximize workouts - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Military Muscle: Combine exercises to maximize workouts

You don’t have to be a certified trainer or a fitness guru to figure out what exercises you can link together to ensure maximum efficiency as well as effectiveness in your workout. The only limits are your imagination and willingness to modify multiple exercises so they can flow into each other. Try these in your next workout:

Mountain climbers and burpees

Start in the mountain-climber position with your body straight, resting on your hands and toes. Execute five mountain climbers with each leg, starting by bringing your right knee underneath your torso, touching your toe to the ground, and returning to the start position. Repeat with the left leg. After five reps on each leg, execute a push-up, bring your legs underneath you so that you are in a crouch, and jump with your arms straight overhead, feet leaving the floor. Upon landing, drop to the floor, return to the mountain-climber position, and repeat until you’ve done the combination five times.

Walking lunges, curls and shoulder presses

You can do this with either one or two arms. Pick a dumbbell weight that you can handle for 10 reps. Start with either your right or left leg and lunge forward, touching your back knee to the ground. Your front leg will form a 90-degree angle with the knee aligned over the foot. Starting with your arms at your sides, begin the bicep curl as you begin the lunge. You’ll be at full curl position as your back knee touches down. Execute the shoulder press as you come up out of the lunge, ending in a full standing position with dumbbells straight overhead. Bring the dumbbells back to your shoulders and then reverse curl to hands at the side. Start the lunge with the opposite leg and repeat. This exercise will look like a series of individual moves at the start, but it will smooth out with practice. Begin with a total of 10 reps — five for each leg — and work up to 10 reps on each leg.

Multiple-style push-ups

Do five reps each of the following push-ups:

• Regular push-ups: Your chest comes to within a few inches of the ground.

• Left hand on a medicine ball and right on the ground; then switch hands.

• Hands on a physio ball and body straight, touch your chest to the physio ball.

• With your feet on the physio ball, lower your chest to within a few inches of the ground.

• With each hand on a different medicine ball, lower your chest to the level of the medicine balls.

• With both hands on one medicine ball, lower your chest as far as possible.

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Bob Thomas is director of the Navy Wellness Center in Pensacola, Fla. For more combo ideas, write to him at jomof14@cox.net.