The Weekend Warrior Workout

[01dragonslayer]

Hoping to be crowned MVP of your intramural team? Gain the edge during the course of the week and become a true weekend warrior with this workout!

WORKOUT SUMMARY​

• Main Goal
  Build Muscle
• Workout Type
  Full Body
• Training Level
  Beginner
• Program Duration6 weeks
• Days Per Week
  3
• Time Per Workout30-45 minutes
• Equipment Required
  Barbell, Bodyweight, Dumbbells, Kettle Bells
• Target GenderMale & Female
• Workout PDFDownload Workout

Workout Description​

Are you the weekend warrior type?
Do you work all week and then ramp-up your competitive drive on the weekends in hopes to blow off some much needed stress?
Or do you simply have little time during the work week and the weekends are your “safe haven” for getting out from behind the desk and shifting into a higher gear?
If you are like most Americans you may find that your mind is ready, willing, and able, but your body has other ideas.
After sitting behind a desk all week, many potentially debilitating things go on in the body. You store fat, your muscles atrophy, and you cultivate a sense of overall malaise.
Now, couple that state with a weekend of physical activity including pick-up games, competitive leagues, and other outdoor activities that have you in high gear.
This sit-to-sprint act can slow your physical advantages, invite injury, and give you pause regarding your state of health.
Let’s prevent this from even starting. Let’s devise a plan of action that has you strengthening your body for weekend “play” without living in the gym.
Below is your new game plan for getting stronger, more functional, and more resilient.
It’s time to get in shape for the weekend war.

The requirements​

First, we need to assess what you absolutely need and nothing else. No extras. No wasted time. No fluff. Just useful training techniques to get you in shape fast, efficiently, and effectively.
It must be brief: You don’t have all the time in the world or the desire to spend all day and night in the gym. Your workouts must be efficient and relatively short. Sure, you’ll have plenty of room for extra work if you find yourself with additional time, but overall your training needs to be 100% useful without wasted time or effort.
Related: 8 Minute Squat & Pushup Tabata Workout for Fat Loss
It must be intense: Since you are training briefly, you must keep the intensity up. Lackluster workouts won’t do much in the way of progressing. Keep the intensity high so you can focus more on quality versus quantity of training. Your workouts will become efficient, effective, and results oriented.
It must focus on the necessary: You won’t have much in the way of isolation exercises. You’ll focus on multi-joint and mostly functional moves working large parts of the body at once, as opposed to training each individual body part separately.
It must be flexible: The modern American worker is busy. Work, family, social obligations, and everything in between is tough to balance which leaves little wiggle room for lengthy training sessions. This program is flexible, pliable, and easy to implement.
It must keep your attention: What’s the fun in going to the gym and enduring another boring session? If it feels like work (after you get off work) then you are less likely to make it a habit, right? Training has to be challenging, but it also needs to be engaging with a dose of fun thrown in too.

What you’ll need​

This program doesn’t require a ton of specialized equipment or a slew of machinery. Below are two distinct plans that are simple and effective. One utilizes a minimal amount of equipment that even a sparsely-equipped home gym will include. The other is mostly bodyweight oriented with a few intermediate techniques thrown in. Here’s a quick checklist:

• Barbell
• Dumbbells
• Kettlebells
• Suspension Trainer
• Adjusable Bench
• Stationary Bar

As you can see there is no mention of body part specific machines, smith machines, or specialized cable contraptions. Just the practical tools to help you get everything out of each workout. This allows you to use more muscle every workout, giving you the potential to train with a larger variety of movements stimulating targeted areas and smaller supportive muscles.
Related: Choosing the Right Gym for You - Home Gym vs Commercial Gym

The components of a weekend warrior workout​

Lastly, let’s break down what components these plans will include. You’re not here just to build more muscle, you will want to build on increases in strength, stability, function, and burn a little fat along the way.
Strength: Arguably one of the most important components of function is strength. The stronger you are, the better you are at any physical endeavor. This isn’t exclusive to 1 rep max type of strength. I am referring to whole body strength including body weight training, dynamic movement, and repeated bouts of exercise.
Muscle: Unfortunately, with this program you may build some muscle (sarcasm, of course). Jokes aside, even though building more muscle isn’t a huge priority when wanting to improve performance, it is a nice side-effect. But relax; you won’t bulk up too much that it hinders your 3-point shooting.
Stability/balance: Another component of strength is your ability to improve stability and balance. In sports this can be a crucial skill to possess. The ability to have more control and an increased sense of balance throughout your entire body is significantly advantageous to your success on the court or field.
Endurance: Along with cardiovascular endurance, you will also be building muscular endurance as well. In other words, you will be improving your ability to perform repeated bouts of exercise. This type of training coaxes your muscular system to recover faster so it will be ready for the next round.

The minimal equipment gym workout​

Below is the first program that uses barbell, dumbbells, kettlebells, and benches. This could easily be performed in any gym or a minimally equipped home gym.
Perform each training session on nonconsecutive days of the week (for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Be sure to dynamically warm-up properly before each workout with two rounds of push-ups, jumping jacks, and body weight squats for 10 reps each.

The last day is void of any cardio conditioning due to the fact that it is the day before your active weekend.

Day 1​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1. Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat	2x12	3x8-10 each leg	0sec between legs
2A. Walking Lunge	-	3x10-15 each leg	60sec between supersets
2B. Single Leg Calf Raise	-	3x10-15each leg	60sec between supersets
3A. Incline Bench Dumbbell Press	1x12	3x6-8	60sec between supersets
3B. Bent-over Dumbbell Row	1x12	3x6-8	60sec between supersets
4A. Hanging Leg Raise	-	3x10-15	30sec between supersets
4B. 3-way Plank	-	10sec each side	30sec between supersets
5. Sprint Intervals	2min	5-8 sprints	1-2mins

Day 2​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1. Hang Clean and Press	2x8	3x3-5	120sec
2. Kettlebell Double-arm Front Swing	-	30 total reps	as needed
3A. Renegade Row	-	3x10-15	60sec between supersets
3B. Pushups	-	3x10-15	60sec between supersets
4A. Box Jumps	-	3x10	60sec between supersets
4B. Burpee	-	3x10	60sec between supersets
5. 1-mile run	-	-	-

Day 3​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1A. Straddle Hop	-	3x10-16	60sec between supersets
1B. Floor Crunch	-	3x10-16	60sec between supersets
2A. Dumbbell step-up	-	3x8-10 each leg	60sec between supersets
2B. Single-arm Kettlebell Clean and Press	-	3x8-10	60sec between supersets
3A. Flat Bench Barbell Press	2x12	3x6-8	60sec between supersets
3B. Pull-up or Inverted Row	2x12	3x6-8	60sec between supersets
4A. Barbell or Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlift	-	3x12-15	60sec between supersets
4B. Bicycle Crunch	-	3x12-15	60sec between supersets

The Bodyweight Weekend Warrior Workout​

Below is the second program that uses a stationary bar, suspension trainer, and bench.
Perform each training session on nonconsecutive days of the week (for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday). Be sure to dynamically warm-up properly before each workout with two rounds of push-ups, jumping jacks and body weight squats for 10 reps each.
The last day is void of any cardio conditioning due to the fact that it is the day before your active weekend.

Day 1​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1A. Feet Elevated Pushup	1x12	4xfailure	60sec between supersets
2B. Medium Grip Pullup	1x12	4xfailure	60sec between supersets
2A Suspension Trainer Row	-	3x15	30sec between supersets
2B. 3-way Crunch	-	3x15	30sec between supersets
3A. Bulgarian Split Squat	1x12	3x10-15	60sec between supersets
3B. Jump Lunge	1x12	3x10-15	60sec between supersets
4A. 3-way Plank	-	10sec each side	-
4B. Diamond Pushup	-	3xfailure	-
5. Sprint Intervals	2min	5-8 sprints	1-2min

Day 2​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1A. Box Jumps	1x10	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
1B. Pushups	1x10	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
2A. Bench Step-up	-	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
2B. Stiff-Leg Jump	-	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
3A. Hanging Straight Leg Raise	-	3x10	30sec between supersets
3B. Hanging Bent Leg Raise	-	3x10	30sec between supersets
4. Inverted Row	-	Total of 40 reps	-
5. 1-mile run	-	-	-

Day 3​

Exercise	Warm up Sets	Work Sets	Rest
1A. Suspension Trainer Pushup	1x10	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
1B. Close Grip Chinups	1x10	4x10-15	60sec between supersets
2A. Jump Squat	1x10	3-4x10	60sec between supersets
2B. 11/2 Rep Bodyweight Squat	1x10	3-4x10	60sec between supersets
3A. Suspension Trainer Plank	-	3x10sec	30sec between supersets
3B. Suspension Trainer Pike	-	3x5-10	30sec between supersets
4A. Bench Dips	-	3x10	60sec between supersets
4B. Burpee	-	3x10	60sec between supersets