Purdy lookin’ cover, ain’t it?
Since quitting my day job a month ago to devote my full time to this site and this community, I’ve been busting my ass to put together the Rebel Fitness Guide, my first product for sale on Nerd Fitness.
Next week, I’ll finally get a chance to launch this sucker, and I can’t wait. It contains a full-blown fitness guide, diet guide, and 6+ months of exercise routines with descriptions and videos of each. I’ll get into all of the details and good stuff next week, because today is devoted to something that everybody loves: free stuff!
Free Workout
I’ve gotten a bunch of emails in the past from people who want to start lifting weights but don’t know where to get started.
Although I’m hoping these guys and girls considering buying the guide next week, I wanted to put together a free workout today that you can do at home with just your yourself and a set of dumbbells or some resistance bands. This workout is similar to one of the Level 2 workouts that you’ll find in the Rebel Fitness Guide, but you can adjust this to be easier or harder based on your ability.
Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, a “superset” is when you do the two listed exercises without resting in between. So, a superset of squats and push ups means you’ll do a set of squats, then IMMEDIATELY do a set of push ups, and then rest for 60 seconds before starting over again with the squats.
The Warm Up:
- 10 Jumping Jacks
- 10 Lunges
- 10 incline push ups
- 10 chops
- 5 hip raises
- 10 rotational chops
The Workout (rest 60 seconds between supersets, and 60 seconds between regular sets)
- Do these two exercises in a SUPERSET, 3 total “circuits.”
- 1A) Overhead Squats (3 sets of 10 reps)
- 1B) Walking Push Ups (3 sets of 10 reps)
- Do these two exercises in a SUPERSET, 3 total “circuits.”
- 2A) Step Up with Knee (3 sets of 10 reps for each side)
- 2B) Bent Over DB Row (3 sets of 10 reps)
- 3) Hip raises (3 sets of 10 reps)
- 4) Planks (3 sets x 40 seconds)
Now, after you’re done with the lifting, you could do some interval sprints if you’re up for it, or save those for the next day. This is your routine for the Interval training – you can do it on a treadmill, elliptical, bike, rowing machine, whatever.
- Warm up for 4-5 minutes.
- Alternate 5 sessions of jogging for two minutes and running hard for one minute.
Whether you did the intervals or not, it’s important to stretch after every workout. Here’s a basic stretch closer that I do to end my workouts.
- 10 Titanic Stretches.
- 10 Back Stretches.
- 10 Ballet Stretches (5 each side).
- 10 Full Body Stretch (5 each side).
If the workout above is too hard – You can make some simple adjustments to make it easier, like switching out regular squats for overhead squats, doing incline push ups instead of walking push ups, and/or giving yourself 90 seconds instead of 60 seconds between exercises.
If the workout above is too easy – Put some dumbbells in your hands while doing the overhead squats and step ups, go with divebomber push ups instead of walking push ups, do pull ups instead of dumbbell rows, and hold that plank for as long as you can.
Mix it up – This is just one way to do this routine. If you want to work your heart harder and sweat more, do ALL of the exercises in a circuit, where you do each one without stopping until you get to the end where you can rest for 60 seconds before starting from the beginning again. If you want to make it more of a strength building workout, don’t worry about supersets and instead do 4 sets of 8 or 6 reps with heavy weights for each exercise.
That’s pretty much how a workout comes together – a few leg exercises, a push exercise, a pull exercise, and some core work. Make sure you don’t do this workout two days in a row, because your muscles need time to recover.
This is a pretty good example of what you’ll find in a Level 2 workout in the Rebel Fitness Guide, with more introductory routines in Level 1 and tougher/more challenging routines in Level 3 and Level 4.
Onto the next free thing!
Free Desktop Background
My friend Joe is one hell of a graphic designer. He designed all the artwork for the Rebel Fitness Guide, all of the cool graphics for the site, and just for fun he put together a subtle (but kick-ass) desktop background for me that is currently occupying my laptop screen. In case your computer is in need of a makeover, try this on for size.
Oh, and if you’re looking to get some graphic work done for your site, shoot me an email and I’ll put you in touch with Joe – he’s damn good.
The click on the image to download the widescreen version, or go with the 4:3 version instead.
Join the Rebel Army
If you enjoyed any of the free stuff above and you want to stay up to date with Nerd Fitness, go ahead and sign up for the Rebel Army. You’ll get updates when I post a new article here on the site, have the chance to win cool stuff when I have things to give away, and special treatment when it comes to the stuff that I’ll sell through the site.
And if you don’t want to sign up, that’s totally fine too; we can still be friends. Whether or not you buy the Rebel Fitness Guide next week, thanks for reading Nerd Fitness. I have such a blast writing for this site and connecting with so many great people; it’s pretty awesome. So, thank you.
Have a great weekend; next week is gonna be a big one over here at NF Rebel Headquarters.
Get ready…
-Steve
###
