Category: Workout Songs

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2 Ab Exercises to Try in a Group X Class

2 Ab Exercises to Try

Earlier this month, my family went on a trip to Maui, and we were sure to fit in a few self-run boot camp classes while we were there. Since Group X participants are always requesting ab exercises in class, I enlisted the help of my family to showcase a few ideas you can try in your next class (beach optional :)).

Here are two ab exercises worth considering for your next group fitness class.

Ab Exercises #1: Up & Down Plank

My friend and I partnered up to show the Up & Down Plank. Start on your elbows and toes. If you’d like, you can also be on your knees. Just make sure your body is in a straight line from the shoulders to the ankles or knees.

From there, you’ll want to press up onto your hands, trying to keep your hips square to the floor. Continue to press up and down, switching the hand you start with each time.

Ab Exercises #1: Planks

 

Ab Exercises #2: Flutter Kicks

Put your hands under your hips, then straighten your legs out in front of you. Make sure your legs are about one to two feet off the ground – keep them pretty low to the ground. Lift one leg about six inches higher and then switch, bringing that foot back to the starting position and the other six inches higher.

Make the movement fast, small and quick. If you’d like an extra challenge, cross your arms over your chest instead. For a modification, don’t straighten your legs all the way.

Ab Exercises #2

These are great ab exercises and workouts to do in your next group fitness or Group X class. They’re especially challenging if you include them in a back-to-back rotation of different exercises.

For more exercise ideas or workout routines to try, check out the workout routines and playlists page.

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Shoulder Workouts for Group X Classes (Part 1)

Shoulder Workouts Part 1

While I’m usually a squats and lunges gal, I also like to mix things up with some tough shoulder workouts. Especially in Group X classes, shoulder exercises are great because you don’t need to balance them like you do for chest/back or bicep/triceps. Also, they’re smaller muscles, so more than likely the group fitness studio will have weights that are heavy enough to challenge the shoulders. You can introduce compound exercises that incorporate shoulder workouts, or you can focus on just shoulders.

Here’s one of my favorite shoulder workouts. It’s ultimately one shoulder exercise with a few variations done one after the other in a series.

Overhead Press Shoulder Workout

Shoulder workouts: the overhead press

Grab a set of moderate dumbbells and hold them so your arms are in a T-shape with your elbows and shoulders in a straight line, palms facing forward. Press your arms towards the ceiling, until your arms are straight over your head. I like to press so that my wrists, elbows and shoulders are stacked one on top of the other.

Pulses

Shoulder workouts: pulses

After the overhead press, I like to have my Group X class hold the T-shape. After 15 seconds are so, we’ll “pulse”. This means bringing your arms a few inches higher and lower at a rapid pace.

One-arm Hold & Press

Shoulder workouts: overhead press & hold

Then, hold one arm in an isometric hold at the T-shape, while the other arm goes back to presses. Switch halfway through.

This shoulder workout make it easy to flow from one exercise to the next without getting bored doing the same exact thing over and over again.

I have a few more shoulder workouts on deck for my next post, which will share other shoulder exercises to try in your next Group X class. If you liked this blog post, you’ll also like my posts on push-ups and tricep workouts.

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A Full Body Workout for Group X Strength Classes

Full Body Workout

I like to get the biggest bang for my buck when I strength train. So, I’ll often do compound exercises, which involve more than one muscle group to get a full body workout faster. I typically take a similar strategy in my Group X classes. Since weights in group fitness studios are usually lighter, they work well for endurance strength exercises engaging upper and lower body at the same time. As you know, there are so many ways to work the same muscle, and now here’s a look at how to work more than one muscle at once.

Introducing Compound Exercises for a Full Body Workout

What’s great about most compound exercises is that you can add in options to support many different fitness levels. My favorite compound exercises involve two doing two exercises simultaneously. So, when teaching these to your class, let participants know the simplest way to ease into it is just to do one of the two movements.

Plie Squat with Bicep Curls

A full body workout with plie squats and bicep curls

To do a plie squat, point your toes towards the corners of the room, making sure that your knees are comfortable the whole time. Then, you’ll bend at the knee to lower your hips. Your goal is to get your hips in line with your knees, so that your legs look more like a box than a house. Keep the shoulders over the hips the whole time. The shoulders DO NOT come forward like they do in a traditional squat.

Adding on, participants can start to do a bicep curl as they come down. Other options include bringing the feet together while doing just bicep curls, doing the compound exercises without holding dumbbells or just doing the plie squat.

Plie Hold and Bicep Pulse

A full body workout with plie hold and bicep pulses

On your last one, hold the plie squat at the bottom and pulse the bicep curls up towards the ceiling. You can also pulse the curls toward the wall in front of you. Or, hold the curls and pulse the legs.

Plie Squat and Bicep Hold

A full body workout with bicep hold and plie squats

Then, you can transition to doing plie squats with an isometric bicep hold. You can also do this vice versa with an isometric plie hold and bicep curls.

Side Lateral Raise Lunge

A full body workout with side lateral raise lunge

After the plie lunge sequence, plant one foot forward and one back, ready to do lunges. Start lunges, keeping both knees between your toes and feet wide apart. Also think about bending that back knee. Both knees should be in 90 degree angles. And, shoulders are still right over the hips, NOT leaning forward.

From there, add a side lateral raise with a dumbbell in hand. Keep your elbow slightly bent and raise your arm to the side. Your arm should come roughly to shoulder or ear height. Make sure that you’re not bending your elbow too much.

Lunge hold and tricep extensions

A full body workout with lunge hold and tricep extensions

Hold your weight(s) so that your hands are right next to each other at your belly button. Sink into an isometric lunge, holding the lunge when your legs are in 90 degree angles. From there, bring your weights up overhead to do tricep extensions. Bending at the elbow, bring your weights behind you, pointing your elbows towards the wall in front of you. Then, extend your arms overhead, keeping your elbows in the same spot the whole time.

Your options here are just to do the isometric hold for the lunge, or just tricep extensions. You can also play around with using one weight or two.

Since this full body workout focuses on compound exercises, it’s a quick one to complete. This is a great opportunity to work a ton of muscles at the same time in your Group X class, so that participants get a lot out of it. For more exercise ideas, check out the workout routines and playlists page.

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10 Workout Songs for the End of Summer

The End of Summer Workout Songs

This summer is flying by. Before we know it, we’ll be trading in our long, hot days for school work, falling leaves and crisp, cool mornings. The changing of the seasons is a great time to add some new tunes to mix up your Group X playlist. A few months ago, I shared a few workout songs to try around the Memorial Day holiday. Now, here are ten workout songs that fit an end of summer theme to play in an upcoming group fitness class.

These end-of-summer workout songs includes songs about school and songs about the upcoming Fall season, because those are the two major things we get to look forward to in the near future.

School is Back in Session Songs

“Rock and Roll High School,” The Ramones — fast-paced, upbeat song that’s good for a sprint.

“ABC,” The Jackson 5 — a family fun song with a slower speed but tons of energy.

“Another Brick in the Wall,” Pink Floyd — a steady moderately-paced song that will give your playlist some edge.

“Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” The Police — a nice buildup for a climb or slower song.

“Teacher,” Nick Jonas — fun, upbeat pop song with a moderate beat that’s good for strength training.

Fall-ing in Love with These Workout Songs

“September,” Earth, Wind & Fire — I don’t know a single person that doesn’t love this song. A must for any fall-themed playlist.

“Falling for You,” Student Rick — A fast rock song with a bit of punk that will have you itching for an interval.

“DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love,” Usher feat. Pitbull — a high-energy pop, Top 40’s song that will fit in a bunch of different playlists.

“Free Fallin’,” Tom Petty — A classic slow jam that will have everyone bobbing their heads during cool down.

“Fall For You,” Secondhand Serenade — A great, slow love song that’s a perfect cool down song.

For more workout songs, check out the workout routines and playlists page.

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3 Types of Push-ups for Group Fitness Classes (Part II)

3 types of push-ups part 2

In my last post, I explained why group fitness instructors need to start championing push-ups in their classes. Push-ups are functional, easy to do at home and one of the best ways to work the chest. Participants are finally starting to acknowledge push-ups as a good workout and with a little encouragement, we can convince the entire class to embrace the push-up.

My previous post explained the first three progressions of push-ups for anyone just starting out or that has a physical limitation at the moment. Now, let’s take a look at the next set of push-up variations for those wanting more challenging options.

Knee push-ups (Version 2)

Once your Group X class has mastered the first version of knee push-ups, then they can move on to the second version. The only change is to move their hands farther away from their knees, and transition so that their weight is right above their knees. Their body should be in a straight line from the knees to the shoulders as participants lower their body to the floor by bending at the elbow.

Knee push-ups version 2

Tricep push-ups

For tricep push-ups, participants will place their hands right under their shoulders and come up onto their toes in a plank position — body in a straight line from ankle to shoulders. Have participants lower their body to the floor by bending their elbows and extend to push back up.

Make sure folks go all the way to the floor. I like to call this, “chest to deck”. I always encourage members to try at least one push-up on their toes before going to their knees. They can always switch in the middle of a set, and even just one on the toes will help challenge them. So, even if they can’t finish the set on their toes, it’s great to have participants envisioning these push-ups as their ultimate goal, rather than settle in knee push-ups for eternity.

Also, to help alleviate some minor discomfort in the wrists, I encourage members to push all of their fingertips into the floor and picture themselves distributing the weight evenly between fingers.

Tricep push-ups

Push-ups with feet on the step

Once folks have mastered the tricep push-up, then the fun begins as we get to start playing with other push-up variations. In my last post, we talked about using a step to help members progress towards doing this exercise on the floor. Once they want to move beyond the standard floor push-up, they can use the step to lift their lower half, putting more weight into their push-up.

Push-up with feet on step

With these six push-up options, Group X instructors should be well-armed to teach this exercise to participants with a wide range of fitness levels. If you’re excited about push-ups, I have complete confidence you can get your class excited about them, too.

For more posts like these, check out the workout routines and playlists page.

Also, you might like the tricep exercises post.

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3 Types of Push-ups for Group Fitness Classes (Part I)

3 Types of Push-ups

Push-ups are one of the fundamental exercises in the fitness industry. They’re a great way to work your chest and core, plus you don’t need any equipment to do them. Yet, not all participants in a Group X class are stoked to do push-ups. I get it. Push-ups are hard and we’ve been conditioned to think that doing a chest press with 10 pound dumbbells is good enough in group fitness. But, I’d like to challenge us all to break free from the stigma around push-ups and encourage them in our fitness classes.

In order to teach push-ups in your Group X class, you’ll want to be armed with a quite a few variations or progressions of the push-up to help everyone find success at their own level and pace.

Here’s a look at the first three push-up progressions to cue for beginners and for anyone with a fitness limitation.

Against-the-wall push-ups

If you’re just starting out or have a limitation you’re working through, push-ups against the wall are a great starting point. Put your hands shoulder-width apart against the wall, right under shoulder-height. Scoot your feet out from the wall a few paces, so that you’re at a slight angle (not quite 45 degrees) to the floor. Keep your body in a straight line from your head all the way to your ankles as you bend at the elbow to bring your body towards the wall.

Against the wall push-ups

Push-ups with hands on the step

As participants continue to progress towards a push-up on the floor, they’ll want gradually get lower to the floor. Push-ups on a step are a great progression from the wall. If you have chairs, stairs or other higher equipment, those might be an even better next option after the wall.

Set up the step with a few risers underneath – it’ll be easier with more risers. If your step has bumpy ridges, you might want to place a towel down first. Then, place your hands on the step, right under your shoulders. Come into a plank position, either on your knees or your toes. Your body should be in a straight line from your knees to shoulders (or ankles to shoulders, depending on what plank you chose). Lower your body towards the step and back up, keeping that plank tight the entire time.

Push-ups on the Step

Knee push-ups (Version 1)

Once participants are able to transition to the floor, knee push-ups are oftentimes the typical place to start. Have participants place their hands right under their shoulders, with hands either shoulder-width — or a little bit wider — apart. Start on all fours, with your knees directly under your hips.

Lower your chest to the floor by bending your elbows.

Knee Push-ups (Part 1)

These three push-up variations are a nice starting point for beginners. Especially as folks are building their upper body strength, make sure participants know these are perfectly good options. Tune in next week for the second half of the push-up progressions.

If you liked this post, you might also like my posts sharing tricep workouts.

For more exercise ideas, check out my workout routines page.

 

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Indoor Cycling Class Routines: Increasing Intervals (45 minutes)

Increasing Intervals Indoor Cycling Routine

It’s important for fitness instructors to keep their indoor cycling class routines interesting. If every class is the exact same thing day in and day out, participants will stop enjoying themselves and stop seeing progress. While we all have our go-to playlists and workouts, it’s important to add an exercise or two to mix it up. There are a few easy ways to spice up your spin class routines. You can add a crowd-pleasing song that you know will amp everyone up — my current song obsession is, “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” by Def Leppard.

You can also try a new exercise that’s not part of your typical toolkit. Here’s one of my cycle class routines and playlists that I call “Increasing Intervals”. I’ve split up the songs into three series. The first series revolves around a “30” theme, so intervals and activities are held for 30 seconds each.

So, we start with a climb, increasing resistance from moderate intensity to hard intensity, finishing the song with a 30 second breathless interval. The next song is breathless intervals and periods of recovery for the allotted time, so 30 seconds each in this case. Finally, the series wraps up with an increasing intensity drill. Every 30 seconds, participants increase intensity, either adding resistance, increasing leg speed, sitting or standing. There are a total of four intervals: moderate, hard, very hard and breathless intensity. The group can recover for the rest of the song and can continue to recover at the start of the first song of the next series, if needed.

The next series focuses on “45”, so we do the same activities this time for 45 seconds each. Then, we do these exercises again with a “60” theme, holding everything for one minute.

I like this indoor cycling class routine, because it gives participants a chance to get good at the drills, but it also increases in difficulty as the class goes on. By the end, you’ll really need to motivate the participants to push themselves for the 1-minute intervals.

“Increasing Intervals” Indoor Cycle Class Routine

Spin Class Routines: Increasing Intervals

For more indoor cycling class routines and music ideas, check out the workout routines and playlist page.

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3 Simple Tricep Workouts for Group X Classes (Part II)

I get a kick out of finding new ways to strength train. That’s what’s so fun about being a fitness instructor — it’s a chance to get creative with how to work the same muscle groups. Last week, I shared three simple tricep workouts to show a range of different ways to achieve the same goal: working the tricep muscle.

Here are three more exercises to strengthen your triceps.

Tricep push-ups & hold

Get into a push-up position with your hands right under your shoulders. Lower your body towards the floor with elbows tight to the body. Hold the exercise when your body is halfway down and your elbow and shoulder are in a straight line.

Want to modify? Participants can be either on their knees or toes. After the exercise, consider finishing with a pushup before going towards the floor. Also, you can increase or decrease how long you hold the exercise.

Michelle doing push-up tricep workouts

Tricep Extensions with Dumbbells

When upright (standing or sitting), extend your arms over your head so that your wrists, elbows and shoulders are all stacked on top of each other, holding a dumbbell in each hand. Bending at the elbow, bring the weights behind you until your wrist and elbow are parallel.

Want to modify? You can use one weight instead of two, or replace the dumbbells with a bar. Consider incorporating a leg exercise to make it a compound movement. For example, you can do some tricep workouts along with a lunge hold or balancing on one leg.

Michelle doing extension tricep workouts

Tricep Extensions with a Band

Holding one handle of the band, face your palm towards the wall in front of you and loop the band so it’s behind your back. From there, extend that arm, so that the wrist, elbow and shoulder are stacked right on top of each other. Then, reach your other arm behind you and grab the band. Lower your arm so that your wrist is in line with our elbow and choke up on the band until it is taunt. Now, extend your arm back up toward the ceiling and repeat.

Want to modify? You’ll be able to play with your resistance, depending on how much you choke up on the band. Reach your lower hand closer toward the ceiling to make it harder and vice versa.
Michelle doing extension tricep workouts with band, facing backwards

Keep these tricep workouts in your back pocket for the next time your Group X class requests a modification. Your group fitness participants will appreciate the options.

For more exercise ideas, check out the workout routines and playlist page.

 

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3 Simple Tricep Workouts for Group X Classes (Part I)

Three Tricep Workouts Part 1

If you’ve ever been to The Cheesecake Factory, you know that people go there for the options (and the bread basket, of course). Why else would you go to a restaurant that has as many pages as a high school textbook? Having a wide selection to choose from is nice, because you know that everyone will be able to find something they like. The same rings true in group fitness (Group X). People appreciate having options and a base line understanding of how to modify or alter exercises, such as tricep workouts.

As group exercise instructors, it’s important to know a few different ways to work the same muscle, plus how to modify that exercise based on needs. That way, you can provide participants with options so they can make their own decisions when they have restrictions to keep in mind.

Triceps are a great example of an exercise that can be done many different ways, depending on preferences. Some folks may have limited range of motion and feel uncomfortable bending at the elbow with their arm overhead. Others may not want to lay on their backs or don’t have the strength to do dips yet.

Here are three different tricep workouts. And, this isn’t an exhaustive list — there are plenty more tricep exercises out there to try, as well.

Skull Crushers

Lie flat on your back and extend your arms right over your shoulders with a dumbbell in each hand. Bend at the elbow, bringing your hands towards your face. Your shoulder joint stays in the same spot the whole time.

Want to modify? You can lift one weight instead of two, holding one side of the dumbbell in each hand. You can also use a bar instead of dumbbells. To up the challenge, bring your legs into a table top position, with your knees right over your hips and legs in a 90 degree angle.

Tricep workouts: skull crushers

Close Grip Press

Lie flat on your back and extend your arms right over your shoulders with a dumbbell in each hand. Lower your arms towards the floor, bringing the weights right over our belly button and making an L-shape with your arms. Keep your elbows tight to your body.

Want to modify? You can use lighter weights, hold one weight instead of two and use a bar instead of dumbbells. Also, you can incorporate lower abs by positioning your straight legs right over your hips, then keeping your legs straight and lowering your ankles towards the floor.

Tricep Workouts: Close Grip Press

Tricep Dips

Place your hands and feet on the floor, with your chest and hips towards the ceiling, like a crab position. With your hips up slightly, bend at the elbow to lower your body towards the floor. As you bend, elbows go straight back toward the wall behind you.

Pro tip: I’ll often see participants moving at the hip and shoulder joint to move their body lower. Instead, tell them to keep everything still except the elbow — that’s the only thing that should be bending.

Want to modify? You can place your hands on risers or a steps to decrease the load. You can also place your feet on risers or a step to increase the difficulty. Also, you can straighten one leg and switch halfway.

Tricep Workouts: Tricep Dips

Check back next week for Part II of the series that will share three more tricep workouts to try.

And if you’d like more workout ideas, check out the workout routines and playlists page.

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3 Factors to Finding the Right Group X Workout Music

Michelle-listening-to-group-X-workout-music

Workout music is an instrumental part of a group exercise (Group X) class — pun intended!

If a group fitness class was a cake, the music would be the frosting. It’s not the most important element of a class, but it can be someone’s favorite part of the whole experience. When picking out your songs, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind in order to create a playlist everyone loves.

Here are three important factors to choosing the right songs for your group exercise class.

Time of day/week for your class

The same playlist won’t work for your 5 a.m. Monday class, 10 a.m. Saturday class and 6 p.m. Thursday class. For example, weekday early morning (say, 6 a.m.) classes tend to be retired or working professionals. And most of them (yourself included) probably just woke up. Steer clear of rap or anything with an unsettling or particularly loud beat.

Your participants

For the most part, you’ll know when your participants like your songs. Sometimes they’ll sway to the beat or start mouthing the words to themselves. When a good song comes on, you can feel the energy in the room as the class starts to push themselves harder.

When you start teaching a class, try different genres of music to see how your class responds. Once you determine what your class likes, you’ll want to create playlists featuring a wide-range of genres and popularity, with an emphasis on their favorites.

If you’ve tried a lot of different genres and still aren’t sure what workout music your class likes, feel free to ask your participants directly. Be specific. You can say something like, “I tried something new by playing, ‘The Boys Are Back in Town,’ did you like that song? Should I play it again?”

You!

At the end of the day, you need to like the workout music you choose. The people in your class will feed off your energy and if you don’t love the song, they’ll notice.

If you play a song and the participants start complaining about your song choice, Schwinn Master Instructor Shannon Fable recommends responding, “Ok, I absolutely love this song, so this one is for me. If you don’t like it, you can just shut your ears for three minutes.” That way, you can still play the songs you like and casually remind the folks in your class that you have to cater to a lot of different tastes, not just theirs.

A great group exercise playlist successfully combines the preferences of you and your participants with the class environment. Once you have a sense of everyone’s music preferences, you’re well on your way to creating the best playlist for your audience.

For more music ideas, visit the workout routines and playlists page.