Simplify your fitness routine for faster bikini body results.
By Lara Rosenbaum
Between treating Rufus for ticks, choosing the right summer camp for Sally and oh yeah, your 9-5 daily regular job that usually ends up being a 9 to 9’er, life is full of time-consuming little dramas. So when it comes to slinking into your black bikini so you can look scorching in the sun, you want it to be easy. Fortunately, paring down your exercise routine can still notch you full-time results, and can even be better for your body. You’ll also save time and money, which equals less drama. Here, Los Angeles-based celebrity trainer Patrick Murphy explains how to simplify your fitness life.
Maximize Your Moves
Do it by working large muscle groups like your glutes and thighs, and incorporate other parts of your body—like your arms or torso—into the exercises at the same time. Called compound movements, one example would be a squat with a shoulder press at the top of the movement. “Performing exercises involving large muscle groups also includes smaller synergy muscle groups, and will involve more work,” Murphy says. “You’ll elevate your heart rate and thus will expend more calories.”
Michael Carson’s Step Out Squat video (BELOW) works glutes, thighs and shoulders AND pumps up your heart rate.
Get Jiggy With It
When you train to improve your balance or work out for specific sports, you tend to expend more calories in less time because you’re moving your body in all sorts of ways. “It’s called functional training, and it’s multi-planar, multi-joint and multi-dimensional,” Murphy says. An example would be adding twists to crunches (to work more of the core), or touching the floor with one hand during a lunge—as if you were picking something up.
The extra movement nets more fitness results. “They’ll also help better prepare you for daily activities and prevent injuries,” Murphy says.
Add Variety
“Variations in workout routines are necessary and scientifically proven to help individuals progress and reach their full fitness potential,” Murphy says. “Your mind and body adapts to movements you repeatedly perform, which creates motor development. But it can also lead to a plateau in your fitness results.”
Murphy recommends changing your routine at least every four weeks, and for best results, to mix up every workout. You can increase and tone down intensity, change your environment (like switching to a bumpy running trail versus a smooth track), or add more volume (more weight, for strength training).
In Murphy’s Zero Limits video, on ExerciseTV, he includes a jump rope to amplify the workout. “It boosts the calorie burn and strengthens the most important muscle—the heart,” Murphy says. “Sometimes I even mix things further, and personally use my weighted rope and other times a regular jump rope.”
Rev Your Rate
Performing intervals during cardio workouts allows you to reach higher levels of intensity in less time, so you’ll get more of a workout, and burn more calories. “It’s much the same as with other fitness training, where you need to give your cardio respiratory system variety for proper progression,” Murphy says. Along with the increased calorie burn, you’ll also help improve your VO2 MAX (how much oxygen your body consumes) and your overall cardio efficiency.
Murphy suggests performing moderate intervals (at 65-75% of your maximum heart rate (HR)) for five minutes, and then upping the intensity (to 80-86 % of your max HR) for one minute. Repeat until you’ve exercised for at least 30 minutes.
An easy way to do intervals would be to increase the level on a spin bike, or the incline of the treadmill. “Just be sure to listen to your body during intervals, as they’re quite intense,” Murphy says. “Don’t push your limits.
