Cardio Gains

Improving your heart health is one of the most important aspects of getting in shape.

Your heart and cardiovascular system are responsible for getting oxygen and nutrients throughout your body both in and out of the gym. Having a strong heart will allow you to train and recover more effectively from your workouts.

The best way to improve your heart health is to live an active lifestyle and move frequently throughout every day. In your workouts, you can maximize gains in your heart health by doing cardiovascular exercise (or “cardio”).

What is Cardio?

Cardiovascular exercise is a style of training that focuses on improving your cardiovascular system (i.e., your heart & lungs).

Doing cardio regularly can have a huge impact on your overall health and fitness, including:

• better sleep

• improved mood and mental health

• improved cognitive health

• lower blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease

• weight and fat loss management

Popular ways to do cardiovascular exercise include:

• Walking and hiking

• Cycling

• Swimming

• Running or jogging

• Rowing

You can monitor your heart rate by wearing a fitness tracker like an Apple Watch, Fitbit, or heart rate monitor. You can also track your heart rate manually every 5-10 minutes or so.

Click the button below to calculate your personal target heart rate zones:

Types of Cardio

Any activity that gets your heart rate up into a moderate-intensity zone counts as cardio. As long as your heart rate is between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate for at least 5 minutes at a time, any activity can count as cardio.

Steady State Cardio

Steady State Cardio involves doing something that gets your heart pumping at a consistent pace for at least 10 minutes. Choose an activity that involves moving the big muscles in a rhythmic pattern like jogging, biking, hiking, or using a cardio machine at the gym (i.e., treadmill, elliptical, rower, stair climber, etc).

Activities of Daily Living

Many activities of daily living also may count as cardio if you stay moving long enough (such as mowing the grass, vacuuming, tidying, or gardening). Even weight training can become a cardiovascular workout if you do many repetitions and take short rest periods. Honestly, any time you get your heart rate up, your cardiovascular system will get some benefit.

High-Intensity Cardio

If you want to be efficient with your time, you could also mix in some high-intensity cardio to your weekly workout routine. This is any activity that gets your heart rate up into a high-intensity zone (between 76% and 93% of your max heart rate).

One popular style of high-intensity cardio is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). For this style of training, you alternate between periods of vigorous activity with your heart rate in the high-intensity zone and periods of rest or active recovery bringing your heart rate back down into the moderate zone (between 64% to 75% max heart rate).

You can turn any exercise into a HIIT workout! For example, you can do a HIIT speed-walk workout by alternating between 30-second periods of speed walking and 2-minute periods of slower walking for a total of 20 minutes. You can also do what’s called a Tabata, alternating between 20 seconds of any exercise (like jumping jacks or squats) and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds.

Circuits are another popular style of high-intensity training, although you can certainly do circuit training at moderate intensity as well. In circuit training, you alternate between a group of exercises for a set number of rounds. For example, you can do a circuit like the one below 5 times for about 9 minutes:

1. 25 seconds Jumping Jacks, 10 seconds of rest

2. 25 seconds Bodyweight Squats, 10 seconds of rest

3. 25 seconds Mountain Climbers, 10 seconds of rest

Keep in mind that doing too much high-intensity exercise can keep your body in an inflammatory state and weaken your immune system—making you more susceptible to illness. Experts recommend no more than approximately 40-50 minutes of intensity above 85 percent per week, and no more than 30-40 minutes cumulative time with your heart rate above 90 percent per week to prevent symptoms of overreaching.

How to Add Cardio to Your Workout Routine

Now that you know what cardiovascular exercise is, let’s talk about how to incorporate it into your fitness routine.

The American Heart Association recommends doing at least 150 minutes total of moderate-intensity cardio each week.

Divide your weekly 150 minutes in whatever way fits best in your schedule. Many of my clients prefer to do 30 minutes on 5 days of each week. Others opt for longer workouts on fewer days of the week (50 minutes on 3 days).

Each minute of high-intensity (or mixed high- and moderate-intensity exercise) as 2 minutes towards your weekly 150-minute cardio goal. So you can cut the time you do cardio in half by getting your heart pumping even more in the high-intensity zone 💪

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Technique Tips: How to Bench Press

Read time: 7-8 minutes

If you want to have a strong upper body, bench press is one of the best exercises to train. This compound movement targets multiple muscle groups, including the pecs, delts, triceps as well as stabilizing muscles throughout your core and legs. 

The bench press movement mimics various pushing actions that we do in everyday life. Having a strong bench can improve your ability to perform tasks like pushing objects, lifting heavy loads, and improving sports performance in activities like football, basketball, and wrestling.

Another reason that I love practicing and teaching the bench press is that it’s a damn fun lift–especially when you get up into heavier loads. Everyone I’ve taught bench press says the same thing: it feels empowering to move big weight. 

Before you start loading up the bar with heavy weight, however, it’s important to take the time to master the technique of the bench press with lower weight and high-rep sets. 

Let’s take a look at how to do the bench press with good technique. I’ll share with you some of the important cues that I give my clients to help them get all the pieces moving together.

First, let’s talk about which muscles are engaged and responsible for movement during the bench press exercise. By understanding the actions and functions of each muscle group, you can focus on engaging them properly during the bench press. This awareness enhances your mind-muscle connection, which will help you to lift more safely and effectively. 

The prime movers of the bench press (i.e., the muscles that extend and contract) are the pecs, deltoids, and tricep:

• Pectoralis major (pecs): The pectoralis major is the primary muscle targeted during the bench press. It consists of the clavicular (upper) and sternal (lower) heads. When activated, the pectoralis major is responsible for horizontal adduction, which brings the upper arm toward the midline of the body. It also assists in shoulder flexion, extension, and medial rotation.

• Anterior deltoids (delts): The anterior deltoids, located at the front of the shoulders, assist the pectoralis major in shoulder flexion during the bench press. They help raise the arms up towards the starting position and provide stability during the movement.

• Triceps brachii: The triceps brachii, a three-headed muscle at the back of the upper arms, are heavily engaged during the bench press. They extend the elbow joint, allowing for complete extension of the arms during the pressing phase of the exercise. The triceps are responsible for the lockout portion of the movement.

Many other muscles have to also engage isometrically (meaning they stay fired up without moving) to stabilize your body while you perform the bench press. For example, your lats, external shoulder rotators, and traps all have to stay engaged to stabilize your shoulders on the bench. Your glutes, erector spinae, hamstrings, and quads also have to fire up to keep your lower body stable. Essentially everything from the shoulders down needs to be engaged to help you stabilize while performing the bench press. 

How to Do the Bench Press

Before doing bench press, make sure that to set up the  equipment properly:

1. If you’re using a detached bench, place the bench perpendicular to the rack so that your head will be right under the bar on the rack.

2. If you’re using j-hooks, set them to the height of just below where your hands would reach with your arms extended up while laying flat on the bench.

3. Place the bar on the j-hooks (or on the rack at the height just below where your hands reach while lying on the bench).

4. Set up your safeties to the height that would catch the bar if you fail the lift and need to bail. If you don’t have safeties, make sure to have someone there to spot you.

Now that your equipment is set up, it’s time to get into position for doing the exercise:

1. Lay down on the bench face-up with your feet on the floor (either heels or balls of your feet).

2. Reach up and grab the bar where your hands are equal distance from the center of the bar (use the rings on the bar as a guide)

3. Engage the muscles all along the back of your body: 

• fire up your back and push your shoulders into the bench

• squeeze your glutes (butt) and push your feet into the floor

• engage your abdominals

• push your chest up towards the ceiling

4. Take a deep breath and brace your core, then unrack the weight, bringing it to right above your shoulders with your arms straight.

5. Take another optional shallow breath and keep your core braced with all the muscles in your back fired up. Then bend your elbows to lower the weight towards your chest while you keep pushing your chest up towards the ceiling. Stop when the bar is touching your chest.

6. Drive through your legs, squeeze your glutes & back of your shoulders to push the weight back up to the starting position. Take a shallow breath and rebrace before doing another rep. Continue for the recommended number of reps in your training program.

Coaching Cues:

• Pull the Bar to You: It’s important to engage your lats and the back of your shoulders to stabilize during this exercise. One thing that can help fire those muscles up is to think about pulling the bar to your chest on the descent. I suggest doing lat rows at a light weight before training bench press to prime this movement.

• Leg Drive: Keep your legs pressing into the ground like you’re doing a bridge (I recommend doing bridges as priming exercises before bench for this reason).

• Bend the Bar: To engage your external shoulder rotator muscles, think about bending the bar into a u-shape towards your feet.

• Brace: If it is safe for you to do the valsalva maneuver, I recommend using it to brace and keep your body stable and rigid during this exercise. This involves holding your breath to create intra-abdominal pressure while the weight is in motion, and taking a breath between each rep or every couple of reps. This eliminates movement in the torso that naturally happens when we inhale and exhale–which can destabilize your base. The valsalva maneauver is not recommended for people with blood pressure problems, health conditions that make the eyes sensitive to pressure, or who are pregnant. For more info on this, check out the lesson on How to Breathe While Training.

For more tips on how to perform the bench press, check out the video below where I covered bench press during one of my Technique Tuesday live streams on Twitch:

Keep Practicing!

Initially, the bench press may appear challenging or slightly intimidating. But with consistent practice and attention to technique, this exercise can bring a lot of benefits to your overall development in resistance training. 

Don’t forget that you can always reach out if you have any questions about whether or not you are practicing the form correctly. Send me a message in Trainerize if you’re a 1-on-1 client, or take a selfie video and post it in the Coaching Corner Discord #🏋-technique-reviews channel.

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About Jayd Harrison

Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:

How to Test Your Maxes

In weight training, a great way to get a sense of your strength levels is to test your maxes. A max is the maximum amount of weight that you can lift in a set of between 1 and 5 repetitions of a single exercise. 

The most common way of testing maxes is to find a 1 rep max (1RM). This is the maximum amount of weight you can lift in a specific exercise 1 time. 

This number can be helpful for determining what weight you should train within your normal training sessions. Depending on the goal of your program, experts recommend training with different percentages of your 1RM with various rep ranges:

• For optimizing strength, train with 80% to 100% 1RM with between 1 and 5 repetitions per set.

• For hypertrophy gains, train with between 60% to 80% 1RM with between 8 and 12 repetitions per set.

• To improve muscular endurance, train with loads below 60% of 1RM with 15+ repetitions per set.[1]

Maxes are usually tested on the squat, bench press, and deadlift. These compound movements engage multiple muscle groups, making them excellent indicators of overall strength.

Many strength training and powerlifting programs give specific recommendations for what percentage of your 1RM you should train with during each week of your program on different lifts. 

For people who have never tested their maxes before, I usually recommend testing a 3RM or 5RM (the maximum amount of weight you can lift for 3 or 5 repetitions). Higher-rep maxes generally come with a lower risk of injury and are overall less intimidating. Some programs actually base training recommendations on higher-rep maxes too. For example the GZCLP method base training weight on a 5 rep max (5RM). You can even use a 1RM predictor calculator to estimate what your 1RM would be based on a higher-rep max. 

Testing your maxes every 6-12 months is a great way to track your progress as you get stronger over time. It can also help you set goals and inform what you should work on in your programming to address weaknesses and technique issues. 

How to Test Your Maxes

Testing your max lifts requires careful planning and execution to minimize the risk of injury. Here's a step-by-step guide to safely test your maxes:

Warm-Up

Begin with a thorough warm-up that includes dynamic stretches and lighter sets of the exercise you plan to test. Warming up increases blood flow to your muscles, making them more pliable and less prone to injury. 

Also, set the safeties to the right height on the rack or bench in case of failure, or have someone ready to spot the lift.

Warming Up on the Bar: 

1. Do a warm-up set of the lift for 3-6 reps with just the bar. 

2. Put 50% of the weight that you estimate you'll be testing today on the bar and do a set of 3-5 reps.

3. Add 20% of the weight onto the bar and do another warm-up set of 1-5 reps. Repeat if you feel you need another set at this weight to warm up.

4. Add another 20-30% of the weight to the bar and do another warm-up set of 1-5 reps. Repeat if you feel you need another set at this weight to warm up. 

Max Attempts

Once you finish your warm-up, get ready for your first attempt by putting the weight you’d like to test on the bar. 

I suggest taking video of your max attempts so that you can analyze your form and identify any weaknesses that you will want to work on in your regular training sessions in the coming months. You can also post these attempts to my Coaching Corner Discord server to share your gains and get some technique feedback. 

First Attempt

Perform the lift for 1-5 repetitions before re-racking the bar. The goal in your max attempts is to lift at an RPE 10, where you leave no reps in reserve.

After your first attempt, rest for 3-5 minutes. During that time, reflect on how your first attempt felt, watch the video back, and write the results in your workout journal or tracker. Then ask yourself whether or not you think you could add more weight to the bar or if you could have done more repetitions.

• If the answer is yes, add slightly more weight to the bar before completing your rest period and making another attempt. 

• If the answer is no, continue to rest before trying an optional second attempt at the same weight to see if the weight moves differently.

Second & Third Attempts

Perform your second attempt of between 1-5 repetitions before resting again for another 3-5 minutes and recording your results.

If you feel you can add more weight, go ahead and add to the bar and complete your rest period before making your last optional attempt.

Using Your Max Lift Data

If you have tested your max with multiple repetitions (2-5 RM), you can get an estimation of your 1RM by using an online calculator.

When you review the video(s) of your max attempt(s), try to identify sticking points and weaknesses that may be holding you back from lifting more weight. Use this information and the results of your max test(s) to select exercises for your next block(s) of training.

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ABOUT JAYD HARRISON

Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:

10 Exercises to Sculpt Your Shoulders

Many people mistakenly think that doing tons of biceps curls and tricep kickbacks will make their arms look more “toned” and strong. But in reality: it’s the shoulders that really make the arms pop!

I’ve seen guys hitting biceps and triceps really hard in the gym every week, and yet they never feel like their arms look strong enough. That’s because they weren’t putting as much effort into the shoulders!

Training the shoulders is not only important for developing sculpted-looking arms. It’s also a key part of training for injury prevention.

Many of us sit at computers most of the day, which leads to tight, internally-rotated shoulders. Rotator cuff tears are some of the most common injuries for adults—which often happen as a result of having tight and weak shoulders. These can occur in the gym and in everyday life—for example, during a simple movement like reaching into the back seat of a car. So it’s crucial to incorporate shoulder exercises into your weekly training routine.

Shoulder Muscles & Exercises

The deltoids are the main muscles that we want to develop in the shoulders, but you should also pay attention to the external shoulder rotator muscles (teres minor and infraspinatus).

The deltoids (delts) are the muscles that start in your shoulders and go down your upper arms. These muscles take your arms out away from your body at the shoulder joint—so it’s that motion we want to add resistance to in order to build more definition in the shoulders.

The delts have 3 main portions:

• anterior (front, clavicular part)

• lateral (side, acromial part)

• posterior (back, spinal scapular part)

For well-rounded shoulders, you’ll want to practice exercises that hit all 3 of these parts of the deltoid muscle.

anterior deltoid

lateral deltoid

posterior deltoid

The anterior part of the delts get plenty of engagement during horizontal push exercises like bench press, chest press, chest flys—so most people don’t really need to do many exercises specifically for this part of the muscle. The lateral delts and posterior delts, however, do need more focused attention because they don’t get activated as often.

Lateral Delts

The lateral delts are engaged any time you lift your arms out to the side away from your body. To add resistance to this movement, you can do pull-aparts or lateral raises using a resistance band, dumbbells, or a cable:

1 Mini Band Pull-Aparts

The band lateral delt pull-aparts are a great way to connect with your delts muscles using minimal equipment. The key to this exercise is to keep your elbows stiff and allow your delts to do the work. I tell my clients to imagine a penguin flapping its wings. You don’t need to move much to feel the muscles burning in this exercise!

2 Dumbbell Single Arm Lateral Raise

When people perform lateral raises with both arms moving at the same time, often their traps muscles take over as they get tired towards the end of the set. This single arm variation reduces the tendency to shrug the shoulders, therefore keeping the work focused more in the delts.

3 Cable Lateral Raise

Doing the single arm lateral raise with a cable is a great way to ensure the muscles get a more consistent stimulation throughout the whole range of motion. Your muscles have to contract against the same amount of resistance at the bottom of the exercise as at the top—which isn’t the case when using weights.

Sometimes people experience pain in the elbows from doing lateral raises with their arms straight. If that’s the case for you, try a bent-arm variety like the 90º Lateral Raises:

4 90º Lateral Raises

You can do any variation of the lateral raise with a bent elbow to take the strain off your tendons.

Posterior Delts

The posterior delts are a difficult muscle to connect to for many people because we don’t often use them in many activities of daily life. My favorite exercises for engaging the posterior delts use mini bands or cables:

5 Wide Grip Seated Rows

Performing rows with your elbows high will allow you to get deeper engagement in the posterior delts than variations that keep your elbows close (which mainly target the lats). Use a cable machine or resistance band for this variation that targets the back of your shoulders.

6 Mini Band High Rows

Both arms have to work during the mini band high row variation—with one arm holding an isometric contraction while the other arm does the movement of the exercise. Single-arm exercises like this are great for correcting muscle imbalances.

7 Rear Delt Band Flys

This variation of a fly can be done with either a resistance band or a cable machine. The key to hitting the right muscles in this exercise is to avoid contracting your shoulder blades (which engages the traps). Instead, isolate the movement to the back of the shoulder and stop with your hands slightly in front of your body.

External Shoulder Rotators

Another important muscle group to focus on for sculpting strong shoulders is the rotator cuff—especially the parts of the rotator cuff responsible for external rotation. This muscle group is located in the lower back part of the shoulder and helps to rotate your arm outward from the shoulder joint. Most people have weak external shoulder rotator muscles (teres minor and infraspinatus) and tight internally rotated shoulders.

By training this group, you’ll not only give your shoulders more definition but you’ll also improve the health of your shoulders and reduce your risk of injury via rotator cuff tears. My favorite exercises to work on the external rotators are the:

8 External Shoulder Rotation

Do this exercise with a band or cable machine to strengthen the teres minor and infraspinatus muscles. You can perform this exercise seated or standing.

9 Band Low-to High External Rotation

This variation of the external shoulder rotation exercise works the teres minor and infraspinatus with the stimulus coming from below. It’s a great way to engage the back of the shoulder. Make sure to keep your upper arm at the same level throughout the exercise.

10 Cable Face Pulls

This exercise is a mixture between a wide grip row and the low-to-high external shoulder rotation exercise and can be done with either a resistance band or a cable machine. It involves both the motion of pulling the handles towards your head while also rotating externally through the shoulders. You can secure the cable or band at different levels to achieve a novel stimulus.

How to Add To Your Workouts

Add any of these exercises to your weekly resistance training routine to build strong, sculpted shoulders. These exercises are a great addition to an Upper Body focus day (for Upper/Lower splits), Push days (for Push/Pull/Legs splits), or a shoulder-focused day (if you’re doing a “bro” split). On Upper Body or Push days, I suggest doing these exercises after you’ve completed your main compound exercises like bench presses, rows, or pull-ups.

A good rule of thumb is to pick 1 exercise for each muscle (lateral delt, posterior delt, and external rotators). Do 2-3 sets of each exercise, aiming to do between 8 and 12 repetitions. Use a weight or resistance band that allows you to feel the shoulder muscles burning by the end of your set (during reps 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12). Allow your muscles to approach failure, but leave 1 or 2 repetitions in reserve before resting 30-60 seconds. Over time, you can add more sets of each exercise or mix in different variations of the exercise like the ones listed above.

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ABOUT JAYD HARRISON

Jayd Harrison is a personal trainer and content creator. She helps people to build muscle, burn fat, and clean up their diets with her online coaching programs and social media content. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch and follow on social media:

How Much Cardio Should You Do?

If you’re looking to get in shape, make sure to include cardiovascular exercise in your weekly training routine!

Cardiovascular exercise (or “cardio”) is a style of training that focuses on improving your cardiovascular system (i.e., your heart & lungs). This is the system that delivers oxygen and nutrients to your cells while removing waste. 

Doing cardio regularly can reduce your risk of illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, Type II diabetes, and some types of cancer. A healthy cardiovascular system can also reduce your risk of getting sick from viral illnesses like the cold and flu by boosting your immune system. People who do cardiovascular exercise regularly also experience improvements in mental health because it can relieve tension and anxiety while also improving your quality of sleep and overall energy levels.[1]

Adding cardio to your regular training routine can also improve your gains! It increases your total calorie burn, which makes it a super effective training strategy for fat loss. If your goal is to build muscle, cardio can also help maximize your muscle gains by improving the efficiency of your cardiovascular system—this allows your body to get more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles while you are training and recovering. Some types of cardio (like high-intensity training) may also help to maximize your muscle gains by stimulating the release of anabolic hormones like testosterone, growth hormone, and IGF-1.[2, 3, 4]

For these reasons, health and fitness experts recommend doing cardiovascular training regularly as part of your weekly exercise routine. Any exercise that gets your heart rate up counts as cardio! You can go for a walk, jog, swim, take a group fitness class, or even play sports. While you’re exercising, you’ll want to get your heart rate into one of 3 target heart rate zones:

1. Low-Intensity Zone: between 55% and 63% of your max heart rate

2. Moderate-Intensity Zone: between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate

3. High-Intensity Zone: between 76% and 93% of your max heart rate[5, 6]

Use a heart rate monitor, a fitness tracking device, or track manually while you are exercising to ensure that your heart rate is in the right zone.

Click the button below to calculate your personal target heart rate zones, and make sure to write these down so you can reference them later!

Low-Intensity Cardio

Low-intensity is the target heart rate zone recommended for people who are sedentary or deconditioned—meaning they move very little in their everyday life. So if you’re just getting started on your fitness journey, this is a good place to start!

Low-intensity activities are things like going for a leisurely walk, swim, bike ride, doing yoga, doing dynamic stretches, or using a cardio machine at a nice, slow pace.

Start small by doing these activities 10-20 minutes at a time. Try to add on more over time either by moving a bit faster or by doing the activity for a longer period. Ideally, you’ll want to work up to the point where you’re getting up and moving around for a total of 30 minutes every day.

While you’re exercising, check your heart rate or do the talking test to make sure you’re working at the right intensity. At low intensity, you should be able to talk normally or sing while you’re moving.

Moderate-Intensity Cardio

Once you have a baseline level of activity of 30 minutes every day, then you can begin to challenge yourself with moderate-intensity cardio.

To stay healthy, the American heart association recommends doing at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio total each week.[7] You can split this up into 3-5 days per week of 30- to 50-minute cardio training sessions.

Many people meet their 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio per week by doing what is called Steady-State Cardio. This style of exercise involves doing a repetitive motion for an extended period of time while keeping the same pace and level of resistance. Power walking, hiking, cycling, rowing, and swimming are all popular forms of steady-state cardio. You can use any cardio machine (such as a treadmill, stationary bike, cross trainer, rowing machine, or stair climber) to do this style of exercise.

Check your heart rate every few minutes while you exercise to make sure it’s staying between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate. For the talking test, at the moderate-intensity level, you should be able to talk in full sentences, but you should not be able to sing.

High-Intensity Cardio

If you’re relatively new in your fitness journey, I recommend sticking with the moderate intensity level for your cardio for the first 3 months of your training. As you get more in shape, however, you can save time at the gym by incorporating High-Intensity Cardio training into your weekly routine up to 2 times per week.

One popular style of high-intensity cardio is High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). For this style of training, you alternate between periods of vigorous activity with your heart rate in the high-intensity zone (between 76% and 93% of your max heart rate) and periods of rest or active recovery bringing your heart rate back down into the moderate zone (between 64% to 75% max heart rate).

You can turn any exercise into a HIIT workout! For example, you can do a HIIT speed-walk workout by alternating between 30-second periods of speed walking and 2-minute periods of slower walking for a total of 20 minutes. You can also do what’s called a tabata alternating between 20 seconds of any exercise (like jumping jacks or squats) and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds.

Circuits are another popular style of high-intensity training, although you can certainly do circuit training at moderate-intensity as well. In circuit training, you alternate between a group of exercises for a set number of rounds. For example, you can do a circuit like the one below 5 times for about 9 minutes:

1. 25 seconds Jumping Jacks, 10 seconds of rest

2. 25 seconds Bodyweight Squats, 10 seconds of rest

3. 25 seconds Mountain Climbers, 10 seconds of rest

According to the American Heart Association, you can count each minute of high-intensity (or mixed high- and moderate-intensity exercise) as 2 minutes towards your weekly 150-minute cardio goal.[7]

Keep in mind that doing too much high-intensity exercise can keep your body in an inflammatory state and weaken your immune system—making you more susceptible to illness. Experts recommend no more than approximately 40-50 minutes of intensity above 85 percent per week, and not more than 30-40 minutes cumulative time per week with your heart rate above 90 percent in order to prevent symptoms of overreaching.[8]

Get Moving!

Feel free to mix up your activity and cardiovascular exercise. You don't have to stick with just one thing every day! I mix up my own cardio, alternating between walking, hiking, boxing, and using the elliptical on different days.

Some activities burn more calories than others, depending on how much effort you exert or how quickly you move. Click here to see a list of different activities and the number of calories they burn.

No matter what activities you do for your weekly cardio, try to find something that you enjoy—or at least something you don’t hate! The more you look forward to your cardio activity, the more likely you’ll stick to doing it consistently.

If you found this article helpful, make sure to “like” the post & leave a comment below!

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[1] (2021) What Is Cardiovascular Endurance? https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/what-is-cardiovascular-endurance

[2] Ross, A., & Leveritt, M. (2001). Long-term metabolic and skeletal muscle adaptations to short-sprint training: implications for sprint training and tapering. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 31(15), 1063–1082. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200131150-00003

[3] Estes, R. R., Malinowski, A., Piacentini, M., Thrush, D., Salley, E., Losey, C., & Hayes, E. (2017). The Effect of High Intensity Interval Run Training on Cross-sectional Area of the Vastus Lateralis in Untrained College Students. International journal of exercise science, 10(1), 137–145. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214170/

[4] Avatar Nutrition. (2017). Cardio and Muscle Gain: Everything You Need to Know. https://medium.com/avatar-nutrition/cardio-and-muscle-gain-everything-you-need-to-know-a4ad0fc62469

[5] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). Target Heart Rate and Estimated Maximum Heart Rate. https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/measuring/heartrate.htm

[6] ExRx.net (2022). Aerobic Exercise Guidelines for Specific Goals. https://exrx.net/Aerobic/AerobicGoals

[7] American Heart Association. (2018). American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults and Kids. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/aha-recs-for-physical-activity-in-adults

[8] Hogan, E. (2022). Weekly Dose of HIIT. https://www.lesmills.com/us/fit-planet/fitness/how-much-hiit/

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JAYD HARRISON (JAYDIGAINS)

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30am EST for a Fit Q&A session.

Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below:

Don't Skip Your Warmup

Many exercisers have a bad habit of skipping their warmup—this is not a good idea!

Your body needs time to prime and prep for your workout. Without a proper warmup, you increase your risk of injury, and it’s likely that your performance will also suffer.[1]

So before you jump right into the challenge portion of your next workout, take 20-40 minutes to prepare your body.

There are 4 main parts to the warmup routine that I suggest for my clients: foam rolling (or myofascial release), cardio warmup, dynamic stretches, and priming exercises. Each of these pieces is important for loosening your muscles, getting your blood circulating, raising your core temperature, and preparing your joints for challenge work. Let’s take a more detailed look at each portion of your warmup in the sections below.

1. Foam Rolling/Myofascial Release

It’s normal to develop tightness and tension in your muscles. Most people, for example, develop tightness in their backs, necks, hips, shoulders, quads, & hamstrings. This tightness can lead to discomfort or pain in the joints or muscles when you use them.

Before working out, it’s a good idea to apply pressure to your tight muscles using a foam roller, medicine ball, or other similar device. This works like a massage, promoting blood flow, relaxation, and increasing your range of motion.

To do myofascial release with a foam roller, place the foam roller either on the floor or against a wall. Then lean against the foam roller (or lay on top of it) with the muscle you’re trying to loosen directly on the foam roller. Then slowly move your body back and forth or side to side, allowing the foam roller to roll under the muscle.

It’s normal to feel some discomfort when you apply pressure to tight muscles—but you should stop if you feel any sharp pain (which may indicate an injury). If you just feel mild discomfort, that means the foam roller is putting pressure on a tight area—which is what we want! Continue to roll over tight muscles for 20-60 seconds and then rest for 30-60 seconds. Repeat for 1-3 rounds. As you continue to put pressure on your muscles with your foam roller, the tightness and discomfort should begin to ease up over time.

Check out the videos below for more information on how to use a foam roller on the major muscle groups in the legs. You can find more foam rolling tutorial videos on my youtube channel Foam Rolling playlist.

2. Cardio Warmup

After foam rolling, spend 5-10 minutes doing some light to moderate-intensity cardio. The goal of this part of your warmup is to increase your heart rate, get blood and oxygen flowing to your muscles, and increase your core temperature. I suggest walking on a treadmill or using a cardio machine at the gym at a moderate intensity (between 64% and 76% of your max heart rate).[2]

3. Dynamic Stretches

After your cardio warmup, take some time to perform some dynamic stretches. Dynamic stretches involve taking the joints through their full range of motion—extending and contracting the muscles at a controlled pace with little to no resistance. This is an opportunity for you to check in with your body and identify any tight muscles or trigger points that need extra attention (i.e., more stretching, more foam rolling, etc).

4. Priming Exercises

Priming exercises are one of the most important pieces to an effective warmup. These exercises are specific to the type of workout you’ll be doing. They serve to connect your mind to the muscles that will need to be activated in the challenge portion of your workout, and they also allow you to rehearse movements that you’ll be doing at a lighter intensity.

For example, while priming before practicing heavy squats, I’ll usually do squats with no weight and a loop resistance band below my knees. This allows me to practice the movement and reinforce safe technique.

Priming exercises might also include corrective exercises to fire up muscles that you have difficulty activating during your challenge sets. Before I practice bench press, for example, I’ll do various exercises to activate my external shoulder rotator muscles. These are the muscles that pull your shoulders back, correcting my bad posture from working at a computer all day. Connecting with these assisting muscles before jumping into my challenge sets helps me to prevent injury from doing my lifts with poor posture.

Here are a few priming exercises that I like to use to prime my body every time I work out:

Cat Cows

Every time you train, you should practice keeping your core muscles engaged. Cat-Cows can help you to fire up those core muscles and loosen tight back muscles. You can perform this exercise on the floor, standing, or seated.

Bent Arm Pull Apart

Many of us have poor posture from sitting at a computer or on our phones all day. Whenever you train, you should practice good posture to keep your body in alignment and reduce the risk of injury. The Bent-Arm Pull Apart with a resistance band is one of my favorite exercises for firing up the external shoulder rotator muscles and lats (the muscles that pull your shoulders down and back). Doing this exercise before you work out can help correct forward-rounded shoulders.

Monster Walks

The gluteus medius muscles in the sides of your hips are important assisting muscles in compound exercises like the squat and deadlift. However many people have trouble firing up these muscles during their lifts, which can cause instability in the knees and ankles. Before I do any major exercise for my legs, I always perform monster walks with a loop resistance band to connect with these muscles so that they fire properly during my challenge sets.

As you warm up, listen to your body and spend extra time on any stretches or exercises that you may need.

If you found this post helpful, make sure to click the heart below and leave a comment! Don’t forget to join the Coaching Corner Discord server to share your journey and connect with others in the Jaydigains community. Click the button below to learn more:

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[1] Ribeiro, B., Pereira, A, Neves, P., Marinho,  D., Marques, M., & Neiva, H. 2021. The effect of warm-up in resistance training and strength performance: a systematic review, Motricidade, 2021, Vol. 17 No. 1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.6063/motricidade.21143

[2] Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 2022. Target heart rate and estimated maximum heart rate, https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/measuring/heartrate.htm#2

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JAYD HARRISON (JAYDIGAINS)

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30am EST for a Fit Q&A session.

Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below:

How to Build an Exercise Routine

Our bodies are built for movement! So if we want to look and feel our best, we need to live an active lifestyle.

Many Americans, however, spend most of their days seated or standing still. This kind of sedentary lifestyle is harmful to our health because it can cause us to gain weight and puts us at higher risk of developing illnesses like cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, and some forms of cancer.

Being physically active, however, can keep your body healthy and even offset the effects of aging. Getting plenty of activity every day improves your brain health, helps you to manage your body weight, strengthens your bones and muscles, reduces your risk of disease, and improves your ability to do everyday activities.

To keep your body healthy, I recommend building a consistent weekly routine that meets all the recommendations for exercise. Get out your calendar, and plan out on what days and at what times you’ll do your workouts, according to the recommendations below.

Cardio

According to the current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, each week adults need a total of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity as well as at least 2 days of muscle-strengthening exercise.

Moderate-intensity exercise counts as anything that gets your heart rate up into a moderate-intensity zone (between 64% and 75% of your max heart rate). This can be going on a brisk walk or bike ride, taking a dance or group fitness class, or using a cardio machine at your local gym. Because the goal of this kind of exercise is to improve the health of your cardiovascular system, many people call this kind of exercise “cardio.”

Break up your 150 minutes of cardio between the number of days per week you have available to exercise. I recommend either 5 days of 30-minute sessions, 4 days of about 40-minute sessions, or 3 days of 50-minute sessions.

To make sure you’re working at the right intensity during your cardio workouts, you can wear a heart rate monitor or fitness tracking device, or you can track your heart rate manually while exercising. You can also use the "talking test" to make sure you’re working at the right intensity (you should be able to speak in full sentences or a few words at a time between breaths, but you shouldn’t be able to sing).

There are many options for ways to get your cardio in each week. Try to find something that you enjoy and can look forward to—this will help you to stick with it consistently. Check out this list of recommended types of exercise for your moderate-intensity cardiovascular training.

Resistance Training

You should also plan at least 2 days each week to do some resistance training to strengthen your muscles and bones.

As we get older, our muscles atrophy with disuse. This loss of muscle reduces our mobility and bone density and also puts us at higher risk of injury. By doing resistance training at least twice per week, you can reverse this process and keep your muscles and bones strong.

If you’re new to resistance training, start with a beginner-level program that focuses on basic exercise technique and mobility. An example weekly workout routine for a beginner might look like this:

• Day 1: Cardio 30 minutes + Resistance Training

• Day 2: Cardio 30 minutes

• Day 3: Cardio 30 minutes

• Day 4: Rest

• Day 5: Cardio 30 minutes + Resistance Training

• Day 6: Cardio 30 minutes

• Day 7: Rest

Keep in mind that in order to continue building strength and avoid hitting a plateau, you’ll need to practice what we call “progressive overload.” This means gradually increasing the challenge to your muscles over time. You can do this by practicing more difficult variations of exercises, adding more resistance, and/or adding another day of resistance training to your schedule (i.e., increase frequency).

At the intermediate level, your training schedule might look like this:

• Day 1: Cardio 30 minutes + Resistance Training

• Day 2: Cardio 30 minutes

• Day 3: Cardio 30 minutes + Resistance Training

• Day 4: Rest

• Day 5: Cardio 30 minutes + Resistance Training

• Day 6: Cardio 30 minutes

• Day 7: Rest

Stay Consistent!

Remember that in order to see results, you need to stay consistent on your weekly exercise routine. Fat loss and muscle-building are slow processes that take place over the course of a few weeks to a few months.

That’s why I think it’s so important to keep a consistent schedule. Do your workouts on the same days and times each week, and treat them like very important appointments. Avoid canceling or rescheduling as much as possible. If you absolutely have to reschedule, then make sure to do the workout within 24 hours to keep the habit going.

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Jayd Harrison

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:30am EST for a Fit Q&A session.

Follow Jayd on social media by clicking on the icons below: