Sheri’s Workouts: Failure Training

A reminder that these sets are for intermediate to advanced exercisers with weight room experience –  it’s assumed you know the basics.  Talk to your coach, get a good book on weight training or hire a trainer if any of this doesn’t make sense to you, okay? This is serious stuff, weight training, and you don’t want to get hurt.

FAILURE TRAINING. Learning to fail gracefully is the crux of any path to success, and building your fit body is no exception.  Once you’re past the beginner phase, you want to push yourself to true failure – where you absolutely cannot do another rep.  This is where great gains in strength occur. You don’t need to do this regularly – but with weight training (and any fitness endeavor) you want to continually surprise your body.  TO GET CHANGE YOU GOTTA CHANGE. That means change everything up, continually.  (hint:  once you’re past the beginner stage, if you’re hitting the weight room or the cardio doing the same thing all the time you are wasting your time…the body – and the brain! – need new stimulation fairly regularly.)

DO THIS WORKOUT 3x/week for 2-3 weeks, but not past that.  After that, go to split body part training for a few weeks.  Then rotate into something else…maybe the Power of Six…keep surprising your body and you’ll get surprising results!

Do this workout circuit-style.  The reps are different for each exercise. 3 sets.  WARM UP AT LEAST 15 MINUTES FIRST!!  Please don’t cheat yourself with short, ineffective warm-ups.  It’s important.

NOTE: ‘Failure Reps’ means use heavy enough weight that you cannot possibly do another rep – and this should happen under 10 reps. Rest 30 to 60 seconds between sets when you need to.

Regular Crunches – 20 Reps

Kneeling Weighted Rope Crunches (cable machine) – 20 Reps

Hanging Leg Raises – 20 Reps

Heavy Dumbbell Shrugs – 10 Reps

Military Press (palms face away) – Failure Reps

Overhead Dumbell Presses (palms face your ears) – Failure Reps

Lateral Raises – Failure Reps

Cable Push Downs – 10 Reps

Cable Overhead Extensions – 10 Reps

Kneeling One Arm Dumbell Rows – 10 Reps

Seated Rows – 10 Reps

Lat Pulldowns – 10 Reps

Seated Leg Curls – 10 Reps

Leg Extensions – 10 Reps

Hyperextensions (use your glutes!) – 15 Reps

Note that this workout hits all the spots that tend to lag: triceps, shoulders, back, abs…your bi’s and chest will be fine and balanced, don’t worry.