Learn how to advance your workout regimen the right way and you’ll get the results that you want. Trainer and IFBB fitness pro Julie Lohre has an all-out four-week training plan using two of the most powerful body sculptors: supersets and Tabata. “By combining Tabata training with supersets, you get an efficient workout that builds both strength and stamina,” Lohre says. The payoff? A sleek upper body and tight, defined abs, glutes, and legs. Bonus: Each workout takes only about 45 minutes.
Lohre says as you progress through this training program, try to increse your weights while maintaining the reps and rest times. “Ideally you want to add 5 percent to 10 percent to the weights that you are using within a four-week period.”
Day 1: Delts & Abs
Superset 1 (4 sets)
Overhead Barbell Push Press
15 reps
Grab a barbell with an overhand grip and stand with your feet slightly wider than hip width. Keep your lower back arched and butt back, lift the barbell, flaring elbows out, and then flip wrists and clean bar to rest on you clavicles and shoulders. Make sure to bring your elbows high so that they are nearly parallel to the floor.
Slightly flex your hips and knees, keeping torso erect and getting a good grasp on the bar, and then explosively striaghten your hips and legs while pressing the bar over and slightly behind your knees. Lower bar to shoulders and bend hips and knees simultaneously, then straighten hips and knees and immediately press bar overhead again.
Tip: Keep your core tight as you drive the weight overhead.
Plank-Up:
10 reps
Alernating starting hand, go from full to forearm plank and up again.
Superset 2 (4 sets)
Dumbbell Full-Range Lateral Raise
10 reps
Stand with feet hihp width holding dumbbells in front of thighs, palms facing each other, arms straight. Raise arms out to sides. When arms are shoulder height, rotate hands so palms face ceiling. Continue lifting arms, bringing DBs overhead huntil they’re almost touching, palms facing at top.
Tip: This movement requires a smooth rotation of the dumbbells as you pass through horizontally. Always keep the weight in your peripehral vision.
Medicine Ball Oblique Twist
10 reps each side
Superset 3 (4 sets)
Upright Barbell Row
10 reps
Frog Crunch
10 reps
Lie faceup on a mat, knees bent, feet touching, and arms extended above hips. Lift head, shoulders, and feet off mat. This is your starting position.
Being a crunch, bringing knees out to your sides while heels touch. Extend hands toward your feet, squeezing abs at the top of the move.
Superset 4 (4 sets)
Inverted Pushup
10 reps
Plank Position Knee Drive
10 reps each side
Day 2: Tabata Legs & Biceps
Tabta training provides similar benefits to cardio workouts but allows you to max ou the “work” from a particular exercise in a short time frame. For this high-intensity interval training, perform the reps in a controlled quick manner. Go hard for 40 seconds on each leg (that’s one set), then rest for 40 seconds before starting again.
Weighted Plie Squats
5 sets
Standing Glute Pulse With Ankle Theraband
5 sets, alternating legs. Go hard for 40 seconds on each leg (that’s one set).
Tip: Do no allow your back to arch excessively in this move by contracting your abs and standing up tall.
Biceps Barbell Curl
5 sets
Figure Four With Liftoff And Single-Leg Squat
5 sets, alternating legs. Go hard for 40 seconds on each leg (that’s one set).
Stand with feet hip width, forearms stacked in front of chest. Step back into a curtsey lunge, with your left foot landing behind and slightly to the right of your foot. Lower until knee nearly touches the floor.
Push up to start and drive left knee up until thigh is parallel to the floor, straightening your right leg and both arms directly above your head.
Bring your left ankle onto your right thigh, opening your left hip, and sit back, hips first, into a one-legged squat until supporting thigh is parallel to the floor.
Drive through heel to return to standing. Without stopping, immediately drop into the next curtsy lunge.
Ballet Side Leg Raise
5 sets, alternating legs. Go hard for 40 seconds on each leg (that’s one set).
Stand next to a rail, chair, or wall with heels tourching and feet turned out slightly. Lift leg out to side as high as possible, then slowly return leg to starting position.
Tip: Roate your knee upward throughout the move and go only as high as your flexibility allows while still keeping your body upright.
45-Degree Biceps Curl
5 sets
Day 3: Chest, Back & Butt
Begin wiht a pushup warmup: Complete 50 pushups, taking breaks when you need them.
Superset 1
Dumbbell Flye With Glute Lift
10 reps, alternating legs
Do a bentover flye while kicking one leg back.
Bentover Row
10 reps
Superset 2
Incline Barbell Chest Press
10 reps
Ab Flutter Kick
20 reps
Keep your lower back pressed flat into the floor to keep your back safe. If you have trouble keeping your back down, place your hands under your glutes.
Superset 3
Strict Pullup Or Assisted Pullup
10 reps
Tip: Do as many reps as possible with no assistance, up to 10. Finish out the set with assistance if needed. To really focus on your lats and back, don’t swing or kip the movement.
Full Situp
10 reps
Superset 4
Four-Count Pushup
10 reps per set
This is a traditional pushup, just done slowly, hands chest width on floor. Take four counts to lower down to where your chest just grazes the floor, then four counts to return to full plank position.
Lying Leg Raise
10 reps
Day 4: Tabata Legs & Triceps
See description on Day 2, doing 40 seconds on and 40 off.
Box Squat
5 sets
Tip: Use a bench at knee height for this move. Just barely graze your glutes on the bench; don’t sit!
Walking Lunge
5 sets, alernating legs
Triceps Bench Dip
5 sets
Tip: To make this move harder, elevate feet on a block or another bench.
