Muscle Conditioning Exercises Without Weights
Conditioning refers to the strength and endurance of your muscles and their ability to adapt to the stresses placed upon them. While most people embarking on a muscular conditioning program will head straight for the weights, it is impossible to improve your muscle conditioning without even touching a dumbbell, barbell or resistance machine.
Your body weight is an underrated tool for increasing muscle strength, size and endurance, says trainer Ross Enamait in "Never Gymless." Basic body-weight exercises include squats, pushups, lunges and planks, which can all be highly challenging. Include reverse lunges, pullups, muscle-ups, hanging leg raises and decline pushups in your routine for an added challenge.
Plyometrics are a more advanced form of body-weight training. Plyometric workouts involve jumping, bounding and explosive movements such as squat jumps, broad jumps and clap pushups. They focus on building your power and force production. You should concentrate on rep speed and quality, rather than training to exhaustion, or the point where your technique breaks down, advises UK Athletics coach Brian MacKenzie. Perform one lower body and one upper body plyometric every workout for five sets of three to five reps each.
While you may not think of cardio as training your muscles in the same way as weights do, certain types of cardio will increase your muscular conditioning. High intensity interval training has a far bigger effect on your muscles than light, steady cardio, claims sports nutritionist Dr. Layne Norton in an interview with "SimplyShredded.com." Cardio drills such as hill sprints or interval training on the bike or rowing machine can increase your muscular endurance conditioning levels.
Perform three resistance workouts each week, hitting your whole body in each one. Start the sessions with your plyometric exercises, then move on to traditional body-weight moves. Perform two lower body, two to three upper body and one core exercise, each for three sets of eight to 12 reps. Once this becomes too easy, switch to more difficult exercise variations. Perform 30 minutes of high intensity cardio either after your resistance workouts, or on days in between.