Be Well Workout of the Week: Choose-Your-Own-Adventure 500-Rep Challenge
50 push-ups sounds pretty serious, right? Even a little daunting, perhaps? Well, this week you’re going to conquer your fears and accomplish just that — 50 push-ups — plus 50 reps of nine other exercises, bringing the grand total to 500 reps! Go, you!
For this workout, you have some flexibility in how you get your 500 reps done. You can each tackle all 50 reps of each exercise before moving on to the next, or break the exercises up into sets: So, five rounds of 10 reps each or two rounds of 25 each, for example. It’s up to you, your ability level, and how much you want to challenge yourself through this workout. This week, it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you make it to that 50-count mark for each exercise. It’s a choose-your-own adventure workout, if you will.
Have fun and good luck!
Be Well Workout of the Week: Muscle-Blasting 500-Rep Workout
Instructions: Complete 50 reps of each exercise.
Squats
Chest press on physioball
Hamstring curls on physioball
Pull-ups
Burpees
Squat with overhead press
Sit ups
Lateral lunge with high pull (single count)
Ab twists (on each side)
Dead lift
Explanations of exercises:
Click links for how-to videos.
Squats: Stand with your feet just a bit wider than shoulder widt and your toes slightly turned outward. Keeping your weight in your heels, bending at the knees and lower until your quads are parallel to the floor. Keep your back as upright as possible. Straighten legs and come back to the starting position.
Chest press on physioball: Lie with your head and neck on the ball and feet on the floor, lifting your hip and squeezing your glutes. With weights in hands, bend your elbows 90 degrees, so your arms make L shapes straight out from the shoulders. Push the weights up to the ceiling until your arms straighten. Return to starting position and repeat.
Hamstring curls on the physioball: Lying on your back, place heels onto top of the ball (if you’re using a TRX, place your feet in the TRX instead) so your legs are straight and lift your hips toward ceiling; your hips should be in line with shoulders. Keeping your hips up, bend your knees and pull the ball in toward your butt, squeezing your hamstrings. Hold for a beat, then return to the starting position.
Pull-ups: Suspend yourself on the pull-up bar with your hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Pull yourself up, keeping your body as straight as possible, until your chest reaches the bar. Slowly return to the starting position and repeat. (If you’re struggling with pull-ups, try these alternatives instead.)
Burpees: Just like an up-down in football. Put your hands on the ground, jump your feet out behind you so you’re in push-up position, hit your chest to the ground, and bring your feet back in, stand up.
Squat with overhead press: Hold free weights at your shoulders, and do a squat. As you stand back up, press the weights over your head. Return them to your shoulders as you squat back down.
Sit-up: Lie on your back with feet on the floor and knees bent. Put your hands behind your ears. Without pulling on your neck and using only your abs, lift your shoulders off the mat and come to a full sit-up position. Lie back down slowly.
Lateral Lunge with High Pull: Hold a kettlebell or weights and lunge to the right keeping chest up and spine long, reaching the weight toward your right foot. Press back up to center and drive weight up to your chin. Lunge to the left and reach weight towards left foot with long spine and chest up. Press back up to center and drive weight up to your chin.
Ab twists: Sit on the floor with knees bent, heels pressing into the ground. Lean back slightly and use your abs to twist side to side.
Deadlifts with dumbbells: Hold dumbbells with arms extended down so they’re resting on your thighs, feet shoulder-width apart. Keeping shoulders back and abs tight (and without locking your knees), bend at the hips and let the weights lower towards the floor, going as far as you can without bending your knees too much. Drive your heels in to the floor and stand to return to the starting position.
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Audrey McKenna Hasse is the owner of A.M.Fit, a personal training and healthy consultation business on the Main Line. You’ll find her workouts every week right here on Be Well Philly.
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