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FACT:
A lot of gym rats might be able to load up the bar with hundreds of pounds for endless sets of the bench press but can’t even do 10 correct push ups…
I don’t think you have any business bench pressing if you can’t properly perform 20 perfect pushups.
If you can’t handle your own bodyweight, how functional is it to lie down on a bench and press additional weight?
Don’t get me wrong, the basic barbell bench press is a great upper body exercise for building muscle, but it’s depended on WAY too much to build a strong chest and shoulders.
Most people consider Pushups and Bench Presses both chest dominant exercises. But there is a big difference between the two…
The bench press is an open chain exercise and the pushup is a closed chain exercise.
The “chain” just refers to the kinetic chain of your body, which simply means that all of your body’s muscles are inter-connected in a “chain” and therefore the movements you make are also part of a that kinetic chain.
Open chain exercises allow your feet or hands to move freely like in a bench press, dumbbell curl or leg curl.
Closed chain exercises keep your feet or hands in a fixed position like on the ground during pushups or squats and even chinups.
Closed chain exercises are safer and more effective for real world functional strength because they allow your bodyweight to move through space in a full range of motion while distributing muscular stress through many muscles instead of isolating and stressing single muscles.
A big reason why so many bench press addicts develop shoulder problems is because of not the shoulders directly but due to the lack of movement in your upper back when pinned to a bench during bench presses.
The muscles in your upper back surrounding your shoulders blades and scapula play a crucial role in stabilizing and allowing movement of your shoulder girdle during pressing movements.
Pushups eliminates this problem by allowing your upper back to contract in a full range of motion when you lower yourself to the ground.
Plus for busy dads bodyweight exercises are great because they can be done anywhere without any equipment!
(here is my favorite pressing exercise)
So if you want to incorporate a simple but intense pushup workout into your workout routine give the 100 rep pushup workout a try.
Once or twice a week at the end of your regular workout aim for performing 100 pushups and time yourself to see how long it takes you.
Do as many reps as you can and do however many sets it takes you to reach 100.
For example if you can do 20 pushups at one time before failure start with 20 but as you fatigue you will probably drop down to sets of 10. You will obviously need more rest between sets as you get closer to 100.
Take as much rest as you need to get at least 10 reps for each set until you reach the 100 rep mark.
Most guys in pretty good shape will be able to complete 100 reps anywhere between 5-10 minutes.
Don’t worry how long it takes you. Just record your time and push hard to beat it the next time around.
Before you know it you will join the pushup century club and have the perfect pecs to prove it!
Perfect Pushups Tips
*Keep your abs braced tight and your hips in line with your body.
*Tuck your chin in like a “double chin” and look straight down at the floor to form a straight line from your head to your toes.
*Push your elbows and upper arms back in a 45 degree direction opposed to straight out to your sides.
PS. Be sure to check out my training article in the April/May issue of Inside Fitness magazine!
I just spent an awesome 5 days in Tampa Florida attending fitness seminars with all the best fitness experts in the world.
No matter what level of fitness knowledge you think you may have, you always need to look and learn from other trainers and coaches to improve your mind and body. As the author of Dad Fitness, I still strive to learn and improve my knowledge to help others get the fastest results possible.
After spending 5 days hanging out with guys like Craig Ballantyne of Men’s Health and fitness icon Shawn Phillips, I started to pick up on some of the secrets these guys use to stay in awesome shape even while traveling.
So here are 5 Tips To Stay Fit While Traveling.
1. Workout No Matter What. After a busy 5 days of sitting on my butt in meetings and seminars I still managed to workout 4 out of the 5 days while in Florida. Which is even more than I workout at home!
The first day I got together with Rommel Acda of FitInAHurry.com, and Deb Froehlich of CelluiteCircuits.com and we trained together in the hotel gym. It wasn’t very big but had enough to get a great workout using our bodyweight and a few dumbbells.
Then the next day along with Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training we all headed to the local Powerhouse gym to get a great workout in a more upbeat gym atmosphere.
Wether it’s a quick hotel room bodyweight workout, a hotel gym workout or a Powerhouse gym workout, just make sure you do some exercise while traveling to offset all the sitting down on airplanes and in meetings.
2. All You Can Eat. The great thing about travelling to new cities is experiencing new places to eat. But if you’re not careful you could be paying the airlines extra weight on the way home, and I am not talking about your luggage…
So do what all the fit trainers did every morning to start their day off right; eat a nutritious breakfast. Even though our hotel served a FREE buffet breakfast every morning, most everyone who is in great shape skipped the bacon and breads and had a huge freshly prepared omelet stuffed with veggies with a little fruit on the side, me included. Keep lunch small with a salad or whole grain wrap so you don’t get sleepy during the afternoon meetings, and enjoy a nice dinner with some lean meat and veggies and even a glass of wine.
3. Drink Up. I don’t mean spend your nights at the hotel bar getting sloshed. I mean drink lots of cold refreshing water. It will keep you full and focused and your mind off the donuts and croissants sitting across the conference table.
It’s really easy to drink lots of H2O during these hotel conferences as they usually serve you pitchers of water in your meeting rooms and in the big conference rooms. Just to be sure you always have water on hand, pick up a couple of litres of spring water at the hotel gift shop and keep on ice in your room.
4. Ditch the Cab. If you are up for some sight seeing or heading to a nearby restaurant for dinner, ditch the cab fare, get some directions and walk there instead. Google Maps on your smart phone works great for this! Walking is a great way to see a new city and burn some calories. Strolling back to the hotel after dinner is a great way to end the evening and ease the guilt from that decadent dessert.
You can also try to find a park or gym a couple miles away and walk or run there to get your heart pumping and your warmup out of the way.
5. Recharge. If you’re traveling solo, staying at a hotel is a great way to get some extra rest and relaxation. You get the bed to yourself, and you have no worries of the kids jumping in the bed at the wee hours of the morning.
It’s also a great time to catch up on some work or read that book you have been trying to get through. A dip in the hotel pool and a hot sauna afterwards might be just what you need to recharge your batteries before you get back on the road.
So there you have it, 5 Travel Tips To Stay Fit so you’re wife still recognizes you when you get home…
How do YOU stay fit on the road? Let me know and leave a comment below.
E=mc²
You might remember this from your old high school math class.
It was Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Despite Einstein’s well known brilliance, what amazes me even more was he was also a busy dad of 3 kids.
Einstein was known for challenging the status quo and I think if he was alive today he would tell us busy dads who continue to waste time on long boring workouts that leave us even more exhausted to smarten up and fly right!
Einstein doing his interval training
So let’s do the math…
A typical workout may look like this.
Pushups, 3 sets of 12-15 reps, rest 60 secs
Deadlifts, 3 sets of 6-8 reps, rest 60 secs
Bicep Curls, 3 sets of 8-10 reps, rest 60 secs
Shoulder Press, 3 sets of 8-10 reps, rest 60 secs
With each set taking almost a minute to complete and resting a minute in between sets this workout would take you about 30 minutes on paper.
But in reality, this workout would take even longer as you would have to move around the gym setting up each exercise and changing weights, not to mention actually getting to the gym.
Even a 40 minute workout is not bad compared to most endurance type workouts found in the muscle mags on your local newsstand.
What if I could show you how to get this same great workout using all the same exercises in half the time and without all the equipment?
Would you be interested? If your a busy dad, you should be.
Enter the Dad Fitness Theory of Efficiency, which is
E=Dad Fit
I am so smart…SMRT
Where E is Efficiency, Dad is well… you!, and Fit is what you will become using this workout routine
So it’s time we pulled a General Motors with our workouts by getting rid of the excess junk and focusing on what works…no offense Saturn owners.
Check out this video to see the same Dad Fitness workout using the exact same exercises done in all in one movement but without the wasted time.
Plus all you need is a simple set of dumbbells!
*Warmup with 10 reps of bodyweight burpees.
Dumbbell Pushup, no rest, go directly to
Dumbbell Deadlift, no rest, go directly to
Dumbell Bicep Curl, no rest, go directly to
Dumbbell Shoulder Press, rest 60 secs
Complete this circuit 8-10 times before resting, and repeat the circuit 3 times.
Total workout time is about 15 minutes. How’s that for efficiency?
So lets get smart with our time and put the “work” back into our workouts so we can spend less time with the dumbbells and more time being a dad…
Do you like playing cards?
Personally I never enjoyed playing cards, I just couldn’t get into it…
But that is about to change because I just discovered a cool new workout routine that fits in great with the Dad Fitness Lifestyle and also fits in your pocket!
Have you ever heard of FitDeck? FitDeck is a unique deck of 56 playing cards containing illustrations and instructions describing over 50 different exercises, stretches, and movements.
These ‘no-equipment’ FitDecks contain exercises that require only your bodyweight to perform. ‘FitDeck Bodyweight’ is also the most popular series of ‘no-equipment’ FitDecks.
To share the details on this awesome fitness tool with you, I got the founder of Fit Deck, Phil Black, on the phone for a recorded interview.
Click this link to listen to the interview and get your own set of Fit Deck workout cards:
Phil shares some great stuff in this interview on how Fit Deck was created and how he balances fitness and family, because Phil is also a busy dad with 4 boys!
I just ordered some of the FitDeck cards myself, as they are dirt cheap, portable and make great stocking stuffers for Christmas…
Here is the link again to the interview and to order your own set of Fit Deck cards:
Enjoy!
Hiking up around a mountain in a couples inches of snow with my 32lb 16 month old daughter on my back!
Yep, that’s what us crazy Canadians do for a workout this time of year.
So try not to let the cooler days keep you from getting out and staying active with your family.
The seasons may change but your healthy habits should stay the same…
To keep you on track with your workouts I am giving you one of the famous Dad Fitness workouts straight from The Dad Fitness System
Enjoy!
Bodyweight Warm-up (this should take you no more than 5 minutes)
• Prisoner-Squat – 12 reps
• Arm Circles – 8 reps per side
• Pushups – 8 reps
• Walking Lunge – 8 reps per side
Dad Fitness Strength Workout
1) DB Step-Up (10-12 reps) 2 sets: Rest 90sec between each set
2A) Flat DB Bench Press (10-12 reps) 2 sets: no rest – go directly to:
2B) Standing Hammer Curl (10-12 reps) 2 sets: Rest 90sec between each set
3A) One Arm Elbow In DB Row (10-12 reps) 2 sets: no rest – go directly to:
3B) One Arm DB Shoulder Press (10-12 reps) 2 sets: 90sec between each set.
4) Lying Reverse Crunch (10-12 reps) 2 sets: 90sec between each set
Who needs bottled water?
Interval consisting of 14 minutes on stationary bike or regular bike,
Low intensity pedaling for 2 min, high intensity pedaling for 1 min until 12 min, then low intensity pedaling for remaining 2 min
Cooldown Stretches
Do you have a “crazy” workout? Let me know by posting a comment below!