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Cardio is vital for heart health and also an important place in an active lifestyle, but if you would like to reshape your body, you will need to be performing resistance training exercises. If you are over 60 and are already strength training consistently, there are two trainer-approved tricks below that you can incorporate into your workout routine to help reshape your body. Keep reading to learn more.
Trick #1: The Superset of a Compound Move with an Isolation
As you get age, your work outs should be slightly adjusted to reflect what your training age is. If you are 60 or over, taking care of your joints becomes more important than it has ever been before. This means that working in higher repetition ranges and picking exercises that are easier on the joints and create great muscle tension.
A great way for you to make your muscles work even harder is by doing compound movements with isolation exercises that will target almost the same muscle groups. Below are two examples.
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Begin this work out by having the dumbbells up close to your shoulders, with your palms facing twoards each other. Keeping your glutes squeezed and your core tight, push the dumbbells up and flex your triceps and shoulders at the top of the movement. Lower the weights under control before doing another rep. Go for 3 sets of 10 repetitions.
Dumbbell Lateral Raise
Grab you a pair of dumbbells and stand up with your chest tall while keeping your head tilted back just slightly. Start the motion by raising both of the dumbbells out to your sides, just right where your arms will be parallel to the floor. Flex the sides of your shoulders at the top of the movement, then lower the weights under control. As you are lowering the dumbbells, maintain some tension in your shoulders the whole time. Shoot for 3 sets of 12 – 15 repetitions.
Trick #2: Add Partials to the End of the Set
Another trick to force your body work even harder in order to burn additional calories and build more muscle mass is to include partial repetitions after you are done with your set. Once you have completed all of the repetitions in your exercise, go all the way back down to the bottom portion of the movement, and do tiny pulses up and down for several repetitions. This will make your muscles burn, increase your heart rate, and also burn a few extra calories! Below is one example of this.
Goblet Squat
Begin by holding one dumbbell near your chest. Keeping your core tight and your chest up, push your hips backwards, and squat down just until your quads are parallel to the floor. Drive through your hips and heels to stand back up, while flexing your glutes and quads to finish. Once you have finished 10 repetitions, come back down to the bottom of the movement, and do 5 partial repetitions. You will want to finish 3 sets of 10 repetitions + 5 partials.
