The Maniac's Spring Break Workout for Women: Stage 1

WOMEN'S WORKOUT STAGE 2

WOMEN'S WORKOUT STAGE 3

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE MEN'S WORKOUT!

As I’m sure you’re very aware Spring Break is a couple months away. Some of you may be frantically thinking of ways to get into bathing suit shape, while others haven’t even gave it a second thought. Don’t worry my faithful readers; because today I will be blogging a 9 week workout program, I designed myself, to whip you into tip-top shape for that two piece bikini.

The workout I have designed will be divided into three stages. Stage 1 will be to strengthen your body. You will be doing heavy compound movements to strengthen your major muscle groups. With the amount of stimulation put on your muscles by doing these compound movements your body will be burning many calories and your metabolism will be sped up.

Stage 2 will be for cutting fat. You will be doing more complex movements that will require a little more muscle stability designed to melt the fat away. Cardio will be increased to as your body will be adapting to the routine from Stage 1 as well as abdominal workouts will increase in difficulty.

Stage 3 will be to tighten up and tone your sexy swim suit body. The exercises will require a lot of stability forcing you to use all those muscles you never thought you had putting the final touches on your newly sculpted body.
For more great info click

20 Tips for a Bikini-Ready Body

This is an article I found on Bodybuilding.com with great ideas that will have you looking your best.

INSTRUCTIONS: This workout has been designed to give you the three assets for the perfect swim suit body: great posture, a slim tight core, and perfectly sculpted butt. In order for to get the maximum benefits from this workout plan you need to be constantly focusing on your posture, core, and butt. What do I mean by this? When you do a back exercise, I want you to consciously think “posture”. This means that you put your chest out and squeeze your back holding the repetition for a split second, before lowering the weight again. When you are doing any exercise standing up, I want you to be thinking about your core. Your core is the one thing between the weight in your hands (or on your back), and your feet planted on the ground. Your core is what’s keeping you upright, so in order to get that tight slim waste, you need to consciously think “tighten my core” when doing standing exercises. You do this by trying to pull your belly button inwards towards your spine. Do this and I guarantee you WILL have a slimmer waste. When doing any leg exercise where you have to bend your knee (with the exception of stiff leg deadlifts), you will inevitably be engaging your glutes, so be sure you are consciously thinking “tighten my butt” with every rep. When I say tighten your glutes, I really want you to take a second at the top of every rep to really squeeze your cheeks together, in the words of my former wrestling coach you need to “pinch a coin”. If you can do this guys will be giving themselves whip lash as you walk right past them!

For Stage 1 of this program, you will be performing two exercises back to back in a superset fashion. I have organized the supersets by letter. You will perform one exercise, rest 60 seconds, then perform the second exercise, and rest 60 seconds. You will do the amount of sets and reps prescribed. On ab days you will superset the exercises, except you will not be resting between the first and second exercise. You will only rest after the second exercise. You will then perform cardio once your ab workout is over.

For cardio you will either be doing low intensity high resistance cardio or interval training. What I mean by low intensity high resistance cardio is crank the resistance up, but you don’t have to move very fast. You may want to do this on machines that will work your glutes, such as stair steppers. This will be great for shaping your butt. For low intensity high resistance training I want you to work out at your target fat burning heart rate. To find this you will subtract your age from 220. You will take that number and multiply it by .75. This will be your target fat burning heart rate in beats per minute or BPM. Try to work out at this heart rate +/- 10 BPM. For interval training I want you to do a 3-5 minute warm up, then you sprint hard, let’s say for 30 seconds. You need to go all out, about 80% – 90%. Then you will slow down to about 50% for about 1 minute. Then you sprint again. You can sprint anywhere from 30 to 40 seconds and slow down for 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, or 2 minutes. You can vary it how you want. You will then cool down for 3-5 minutes. Do your warm up, intervals, and cool down within the time I have allotted for cardio.

It is extremely important that you take 5 to 7 minutes to warm up before performing any of these workouts. It is especially important to take the time to stretch and warm up your core before doing ab exercises. This is essential if you want to develop great abs! If you have any questions or concerns on how to perform any of these exercises feel free to comment below or e-mail me at maniacs.gym@gmail.com. You can also do a search on Bodybuilding.com or YouTube, as a great source for instructions on how to perform certain exercises. I will be posting Stage 2 and Stage 3 of my exercise program shortly.

WEEKS 1-3

DAY 1
A1: 3 sets 8-10 reps Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
(Flat Dumbbell Bench on Week 3)
A2: 2 sets 12-15 reps Pullup (wide grip)

B1: 3 sets 8-10 reps Barbell Bench Press
(Incline Barbell Bench Press on Week 3)
B2: 2 sets 12-15 reps Lat Pulldown (regular grip)

C1: 3 sets 8-10 reps Bench Dips
(switch to pushups on Weeks 2&3)
C2: 2 sets 12-15 reps High Pull Cable Rows (rope)
(Cable Rows Wide Grip Week 3)

D1: 2 sets 12-15 reps Incline Dumbbell Flys
D2: 2 sets 15-18 reps Single Arm Dumbbell Rows
(Double Arm Dumbbell Rows on Weeks 2&3)

DAY 2
A1: 2 sets 12-15 reps each side Standing Oblique Crunches
A2: 2 sets 30-90 seconds Plank
30 Minutes of High Resistance Low Intensity Cardio

DAY 3
A1: 2 sets 12-15 reps Dumbbell Curls
A2: 2 sets 12 -15 reps Tricep Pushdowns (Bar on Week 1 Rope on Weeks 2&3)

B1: 2 sets 15-18 reps Two Hand Cable Curls
(Dumbbell Concentration Curls on Weeks 2&3)
B2: 2 sets 15-18 reps Single Arm Dumbbell French Press
(Lying Dumbbell Extension on Weeks 2&3)

C1: 2 sets 12-15 reps Incline Dumbbell Curls
C2: 2 sets 12-15 reps Cable Tricep Kickbacks
(Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks on Week 3)

D1: 3 sets 12-15 reps Single Leg Standing Calf Raise

DAY 4
A1: 2 sets 20 reps Swiss Ball Crunch
A2: 2 sets 8-10 reps Back Extensions
15-20 Minutes of Interval Cardio

DAY 5
A1: 3 sets 8-10 reps Squats
(Close Stance Squat on Week 3)
A2: 3 sets 10-12 reps each leg Front Lunges
(Backwards Lunges on Weeks 2&3)

B1: 3 sets 12-15 reps Leg Extensions
B2: 3 sets 10-12 reps each leg Side Lunges
(Side Lunge with Hop on Week 3)

C1: 3 sets 10-12 reps each leg Single Leg Press
(Split Squat on Weeks 2&3)
C2: 3 sets 12-15 reps Step Ups
(Single Leg Deadlift on Week 3)

D1: 2 sets 8-10 reps Front Raises
(Side Lateral Raises on Week 2)
(Bent Over Lateral Raises on Week 3)

DAY 6
A1: 2 sets 10-12 reps Hanging Knee Raises
A2: 2 sets 8-10 reps Superman
30 Minutes of High Resistance Low Intensity Cardio