Welcome to my all in one combo training article. This is my personal way of training and I love it. It provides me with a system that allows me to train my body in all the areas that I want. It should be noted here though that this system can be quite intense and you will need to ensure you are fit enough, have your nutrition in order and get enough rest for recovery.
My combo training is designed to hit all the areas of fitness, muscle, strength, cardio, aerobics and conditioning. It’s a great way to maintain or improve all these areas injury free, providing me with great recovery and still allowing me to push hard. Staying injury free is part of my healthy workout plan, I don’t want to compromise my fitness or health, especially joint health at my age.
Here’s a look at what I do in my combo training system:
Essentially I do seperate weight training and conditioning/HIIT/steady cardio sessions. I use the weight days to work my muscles in the hypertrophy and strength areas and then do a conditioning session with added HIIT and steady state cardio for conditioning, fitness and body composition control as follows:
Sunday: Upper body (weights)
Monday: Lower body (weights)
Tuesday: Rest
Wednedsay: Conditioning/HIIT & steady state (mostly upper body exercises)
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Conditioning/HIIT & steady state (mostly lower body exercises)
Saturday: Rest
As you can see I do an upper/lower routine in this cycle. Let’s break it down…..
My upper/lower weight training days
It’s a simple upper/lower weight training routine, where I pick one or two compound exercises using lower reps (5-8 reps) for strength training, followed by an isolation exercise to target the muscle and work towards failure using higher reps (10-15 reps). There isn’t really much more to say about this part of my routine, it’s simply a weight training session based upon the principles I explained in the muscle and strength building series of articles.
Here is an example of a typical routine I might do:
Upper weights day:
General warmup
Neutral Grip DB Press 2 x warm-up sets
Neutral Grip DB Press 2 sets x 6-8 reps
DB Side Laterals 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Bent-Over Flyes 1 set x 10-12 reps
Lying External Rotation 1 set x 10-12 reps
Single Arm DB Rows 2 sets x 6-8 reps
Neutral Grip Pull Ups 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Close Under Grip Chins 1 set x 8-10 reps
Standing DB Curls 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Neutral Grip Bar with Slight Incline Press 2 sets x 6-8 reps
Flat flyes 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Close hands Press-ups with weight vest 1 set x 10-12 reps
DB Skullcrushers 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Cool down
Total session time = 40-50 mins
Lower weights day:
general warmup
Barbell Squats 2 x warm-up sets
Barbell Squats 2 sets x 10-12 reps
Single Leg Press 2 sets x 12-15 reps
Leg Curls 2 sets x 12-15 reps
Deadlift 2 sets x 8-10 reps
Seated Calf Raise 2 sets x 15-25 reps
Single Calf Leg Press Calf Raise 2 sets x 15-25 reps
Frog Crunches 2 sets x 12-15 reps
Side Crunches 2 sets x 12-15 reps
cool down
Total session time = 40-50 mins
My mainly upper/lower conditioning/HIIT & steady state days
This routine is split into conditioning, HIIT and steady state cardio sections as follows:
Conditioning
What is conditioning?
Conditioning is the training of the body to reduce the stress of doing an activity. You can condition your skeletal muscles, heart, lungs and metabolism. Your skeletal muscles can be conditioned by training them on a regular basis, with resistance based workouts using such equipment as, free weights, weight machines, bodyweight training, or various exercise devices and equipment such as medicine balls, resistance bands, chest expanders, chains etc.
Your heart can be conditioned to beat stronger and your lungs can be conditioned to increase its capacity using cardiovascular-based conditioning such as, running, sprinting, bike riding, shuttle runs, swimming or using equipment such as elliptical trainers, recumbent bikes, rowers and step machines.
Or you can do a circuit style system like me as follows:
My conditioning part of my workout consists of using exercises from my fitness and conditioning exercise list. I do a circuit of around 7-8 exercises for between 10-15 minutes. They are done with very little rest between them, often doing 2-3 of them back to back with no rest, then maybe a minutes rest before getting onto the next 2-3 exercises. These exercises still work your muscles as they provide resistance, but also compliment the weight training sessions by building endurance, as well as lung and heart conditioning and core strength, which allows you to work harder in your weight training workouts. It also helps to improve speed, agility, balance, fitness and aids recovery from the weight training session as well. One thing to note is due to the none stop nature of this circuit, your rep count will actually drop very quickly due to natural fatigue, lactic acid build up and being out of breathe, so it’s not a high rep workout of individual exercises, it’s a total physical endurance routine.
Next is a 10 minute HIIT session. Bearing in mind that the conditioning session is essentially also an HIIT session in itself, I do this part with no resistance and it can consist of heavy bag work, skipping or sprinting. Timing for this HIIT will vary, but can be between 15-30 seconds of all out effort followed by 30-60 seconds of a slower pace/complete rest period.
The session is then finished off with 10-15 minutes of steady state cardio, it’s none stop and can consist of any exercise/activity that keeps you going at a low to moderate pace. Doing steady state now, takes advantage of the fact that the previous sessions have released fat into the blood strem and now I can use steady state cardio to use more fat for energy. It’s also a good way to cool down instead of coming to an abrupt stop.
An example of such a routine could look like this:
Mainly upper body conditioning day:
2-3 circuits 10-15 minutes:
DB Clean and Press
Dive Bombers
DB Pushup Rows
Face Down on Bench YTL’s
Pressup Claps
L Lateral Raise
Inverted Rows
Floor Extensions – Lower Back
HIIT – 10 mins:
Heavy Bag Work
Steady state cardio 10-15 mins:
Speed ball work
Shadow boxing
Martial Arts & Martial Arts weapons training
Total session time = 30-40 mins
Mainly lower body conditioning day:
2-3 circuits 10-15 minutes:
Squat Thrusts
Front Split Lunge Jump
Side Lunges Jumps
Hip Raises
Squat jumps
Medball Twists
Free Lunges walks
HIIT – 10 mins:
Skipping
Fast paced bag strikes
Steady state cardio 10-15 mins:
Stationary running
Free kicks – balance practise
Total session time = 30-40 mins
Periodization
After following the upper/lower routine above for around 2-3 months I then swap over to a full body system. Periodisation is an important part of my whole routine, it prevents boredom and gives me a a change of pace. It also allows me to swap over to a routine that lets me use exercises that train the whole body, changing the stimulus to my body and mind. The full body routine is split in such a way that I get three weight sessions and three conditioning sessions within a two week period as follows:
Sunday: Full body (weights)
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Full body Conditioning/HiiT & steady state
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Full body (weights)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Full body Conditioning/HiiT & steady state
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Full body (weights)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Full body Conditioning/HiiT & steady state
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
As you can see you get 48 hours rest between your workouts, except once a week you get 72 hrs, once after weights in one week and once after the conditioning/cardio session the following week, giving you excellent time for recovery.
My full body weight training days
With my full body weight day workout, I’ll do one compound exercise for each major muscle group and add a few isolation exercises as I see fit.
Here is an example of my full body system:
Full body weights day:
General warmup
Neutral Grip DB Press 3 x warm-up sets
Neutral Grip DB Press 2 x 6-8
Two handed DB rows 2 x 6-8
Neutral Med Grip Pull Ups 2 x 10-12
Neutral Grip Bar Slight Incline Press 2 x 6-8
Close hands Press-ups with weight vest 2 x 10-12
DB curls 2 x 10-12
DB Side Laterals 2 x 10-12
Barbell or Dumbbell Squats 3 x warm-up sets
Barbell or Dumbbell Squats 2 x 10-12
Deadlift 2 x 8-10
Seated Calf Raise 2 x 15-25
Frog Crunches 2 x 12-15
Coll down
Total session time = 55-60 mins
My full body conditioning/HIIT & steady state day
1 circuit (any order I prefer) – Conditioning/HIIT 20-25 mins:
Goblet squats
Burpee mountain climber
Dumbbell Squat Clean and Press
Chin ups
Medball Press ups – one hand on and over
V-ups
Jumping Jacks
Dumbbell swings
One legged deadlift
Wide squat dumbbell overhead lift
Wood Choppers
None standing Squat Thrusts
DB Pushup Rows
Walking lunges
Bag work
Skipping
Steady state cardio 10-15 mins:
Shadow boxing
Speed Ball
Free kicks – balance practise
Stationary running
Martial Arts & Martial Arts weapons training
Total session time = 30-40 mins
I only follow the full body system for 1 month before taking a week off and then returning to the upper/lower routine. As with any full body HIIT type training it can be very demanding physically, so take care to work at a comfortable pace to begin with and work your intensity up over a period of time.
Finally
Well that’s it. This set of routines combines all the areas I cover in the workout section and works great for anyone who also wants to combine all disciplines. If you are new to working out, then simply reduce the amount of exercises and intensity to begin with and then work your way up as you progress. If you are more advanced then you can adjust it to suit your needs and level.
By the way I’m also working on adding in more natural movement training to my workouts in the future and will be covering an article about my findings, stay tuned.
I do also highly recommend that you go through the Exercise and workout section before attempting this system.
