You’re on the road with no access to any weight equipment, but you want to challenge your legs. What do you do?

Working the muscles doesn’t always have to be about loading heavy weight, there is another way! And it’s all about increasing the time under tension! Yes, you can use your own body weight and get the muscle response you are looking for.

Here is one of the ways I like to accomplish this with a Lunge.

We call the the One and Half Lunge!  Basically, you are going to perform your normal lunge in any variation you want (forward, reverse, walking, stationary), but you will add a half rep in between each regular rep.  What this does is add a more isometric element to the exercise increasing the force being applied.  In this particular variation, I added a rotation at the bottom to add a few more seconds in the muscle burn as well as adding a backward portion.

And if you are looking for a way to incorporate these into a workout, here is what I did this morning:

• 20 1 1/2 Lunges with Rotation
• Bear Crawls, 2 sets of 10 steps forward and back
• 8 Jump Squats
• 10 Side Plank Side Leg Lifts
• 90 seconds on the Treadmill at a challenging pace (I did 1.0 incline and 8.0 speed)
• Repeat 4 times!

I’m in Pullman one more day which means one more early morning bodyweight workout.  My legs are toast (65,000 steps in the past 48 hours) so the focus tomorrow will be on upper body, core and movement.  Hopefully I rebound a little bit with a good nights sleep!

Goodnight friends, S