Intermediate Workout
Who is at an Intermediate Level?
This exercise routine is for those who are at an intermediate level. Who is at an intermediate level? To keep it simple, a person exercising at an intermediate level is someone who:
1. has consistently exercised for six to eight weeks and is fully comfortable with using resistance bands or lightweight dumbbells.
2. has experienced muscle soreness and is no longer sore after performing consecutive workouts.
3. understands that warming up before each exercise routine is important.
4. understands the difference between high rep endurance exercises and low to moderate rep strength and toning exercises.
5. understands that the entire body must be worked out evenly so that the body can remain balanced.
Someone at an intermediate level should be able to understand these important concepts of designing workout routines. Now, with that being said, let's go ahead and jump into an intermediate workout.
Exercise One: Squat with Shoulder Press
This workout is challenging, will definitely get your heart rate up, and definitely make you sweat and wear you out. First, we are going to warm-up the muscles in your lower and upper extremities. We will go ahead and start off with the Squat with Shoulder Press exercise. This is a great choice as a first exercise to include in an intermediate level workout because the Squat with Shoulder Press will strengthen your hamstrings, quadriceps, glutes, core muscles, shoulder, tricep and chest muscles. Basically this serves as a good warm-up exercise before you begin the other exercises. Let's go ahead and get started.
For this exercise you will need a pair of dumbbells or a barbell.
Grab one dumbbell in each hand. Bring the dumbbells up in front of you, to the level of your shoulders, with your palms facing away from you.
Place your feet shoulder width apart.
To begin, move the trunk of your body down into a squat and stop right before your knees are 90 degrees. Try to keep your back as straight as possible and be sure not to move the dumbbells while you're moving down into your squat.
The next action is to push off with your legs so that you're returning your body back to the starting position. As you are returning your body back to the starting position, push the dumbbells up over your head while extending your arms. At the end of this action your legs and arms should be fully extended.
Now, slowly bring the dumbbells back to the level of your chest, while bending your knees back into a squat. At the end of this motion, you should be in a squatting position with the dumbbells at the level of your chest.
Once again, extend your knees and push the dumbbells in the air.
For this intermediate workout I want you to perform each movement over a four-second up, four-second down period so we can make sure to avoid momentum when doing these exercises. Perform three sets of 8-12 repetitions.
Next Intermediate Exercise: Curl and Delts »
Tips for Squat with Shoulder Press
1. Work on coordinating the squat with the shoulder press movement. Take your time when first doing this exercise to make sure you are standing up from your squat at the same time you are extending your arms for the shoulder press. Make sure that you are bringing your arms down from the shoulder press at the same time you are moving down into your squat.
2. Exhale while moving up to a fully extended position and inhale when moving down into a squatting position.
3 .Perform three sets of 8-12 repetitions.