Happy March! This month’s strength program goes back to a few basics to help us build stronger legs, backs, and chests. If you’re new to HTM workouts or just need a refresher, tons of details about how to use this workout are below.
A few reminders if you’re taking the repeated approach and using progressive overload (AKA adding weight as you get more comfortable with the movements):
For your first workout or two, take it a little easy. Don’t immediately jump to the heaviest weight you can stand to move. Ease your way in to hopefully avoid destroying yourself with soreness and feeling the need to take a super-long break before you go back for another workout (or even feeling discouraged entirely). THEN start to push. Nudge just slightly out of your comfort zone each time. Grunting, cursing, and heavy breathing all very welcome.
Record the weights you used, if you’re comfortable (if recording body-related numbers is not good for you, skip this part). You should be trying to use a weight that gets you very fatigued and close to failure (i.e. you can’t do another rep) by the end of the minute-long set.
Repeat the workout at least once or twice more within the week if possible.
Do this for four-ish weeks (or more!), adding weight to the extent possible for each exercise that uses weight. Keep recording your weights (again, if this feels like a wise move for you) so you can see your progress! You can also mark progress on things like number of reps, longer working time (if you started off needing to take a break before the end of the set, etc.), or positioning (moving toward a more advanced version of the exercise), if applicable.
You can do the other WOWs that come through over the next couple of weeks as a way to mix things up and supplement your training, if you have time.
Then you’ll get another strength-training–focused workout next month, and the cycle begins anew. (You’re welcome to stick with this one for longer, but because it’s a relatively short workout we aren’t hitting a quite-complete range of movement patterns, so I’d suggest switching things up when the time comes.)
I’m typically a big fan of offering up the option to skip the warmup or cooldown, or one or two rounds of the circuit. However, if you’re doing this in a progressive overload setup, I’d like to encourage you to keep the warmup and cooldown to make sure you’re taking good care of your body. If you can only do one or two circuits the first week, see if you’re able to add a second or third circuit in subsequent weeks.
A note on weights: If you’re going to go for true strength training, you need some heavy weights. This can be hard for home exercisers! I hate sending you out to buy weights — they’re expensive, heavy (heh), and hard to store. But you may get to a point where you just have to go for it and buy your own, or find a gym facility you can use that has heavier dumbbell options.
If you aren’t interested in progressive overload–focused strength training (or not yet), you are very welcome to just follow this video like a regular one-off workout! And you can do the whole thing, or if you have less time or energy than that, you can trim things down by:
Skipping the warmup
Skipping the cooldown
Skipping one or two of the three rounds of the resistance-training circuit
Make it work for you. If you’d like to repeat this workout a time or two throughout the week, great.
And finally, just a quick tech note: I mention in this video that I finally invested in a really good quality mic, and of course after I filmed this video I realized I had a setting on the mic slightly messed up. It sounds really good but is mostly just on one “channel” instead of evenly balanced on both sides. I think you’ll get used to it after a few seconds, but I do apologize! As usual, building this plane as I fly it, ha ha. Next week’s workout will have the same issue, but the week after that (and beyond!) will be golden.
ANYWAY! Let’s go!
