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Lunge

Lunges are amazing for your butt, hips, and upper legs. Stand upright with

your feet shoulder-width apart. Take a large step forward, and plant your foot

on the ground. Keeping your front knee completely stable and your upper

body perfectly vertical, lower your body straight down until your back knee

nearly touches the ground. Raise your body straight up and repeat with

another step. Keep repeating.

Don’t allow your torso to lean forward and be sure to evenly distribute your

body weight on both legs. Think of your torso as having a pole placed directly

down the center, like a horse on a merry-go-round and go up and down, not

back and forth. Also keep in mind that the farther you step out, the more

emphasis is placed on the butt and hamstrings; the more shallow your step,

the more emphasis is placed on the quads. Finally, when you’re in the down

position, both knees should form a 90-degree angle, and you should be able

to see the tip of your shoe or toes.

Moving through Sample Stations ..............................................................

The beauty of circuit training is that you can set up the stations any way you

want, using only a few of the exercises in this chapter, all of them, and/or other

exercises from other sources. You can do each exercise once in the circuit, or

you can repeat an exercise two or more times in one circuit. Your circuit can

include 5 exercises or 25. You get to decide, see what works for you, tweak the

circuit, do it some more, and so on.

Be sure to arrange your circuit so you alternate stations that use similar

muscles. In other words, do an exercise for your abdomen, then arms, then

legs, then your back, and then go back to abdomen, arms, and so on. Or, if

you want to do an arm-intensive circuit, set up a station for your arms, then

legs, then arms, then back, then arms, then abdomen, then arms, and so on.

Either way, give your muscles a little time to rest before working them again.

Here’s a sample way of ordering the exercises listed in this chapter. This

gives you 21 exercises for your circuit. See the following section for step-by-

step instructions on how you work these 21 exercises into a circuit-training

workout.

Triceps kickbacks

Basic crunches

Dumbbell biceps curls

Step-ups

246 Part V: Cardio-Strength Workouts: Getting the Best of Both Worlds