Recently, I was asked to write an article about a cardio workout focused on the arms. Honestly, I was perplexed and had nothing in my repertoire for this. So, I went to the fitness drawing board. My goal was to keep the arms moving, work up a sweat, and last 20 minutes.
I will go over the different workouts I came up with even though many did not meet my criteria; however, they were all very good arm workouts.
The first was a push up and jumping jack routine. I knew I could not do 20 minutes of push ups as that would total around 1,200-1,400 reps. If I could do that many push ups, I would have no other worries in life! So, I did 25 jumping jacks then dropped and did 25 push ups. Close to the ten minute mark, my arms gave out and they were not moving at a cardio pace.
Next, I turned to my martial arts roots and attacked a heavy bag for seven three-minute rounds. Or at least, I wanted to. After about round five, my arms were Jell-o. Fifteen minutes is not too bad for cardio, but 20 minutes and up is the ideal mark.
My marginal success in the last endeavor led me to my final workout. The seven rounds of three minutes each was something I knew I could work with. The problem was the beating on a heavy bag is very taxing.
This time around I decided to do:
Round one – Shadow box for three minutes. I threw good quality punches at a medium pace. By the end of the round a light sweat was present just like I wanted. I did 25 jumping jacks to move my arms in a different motion.
Round two – Shadow box for three minutes at a faster pace. I gauged it by my inability to talk more than a few words at a time. Again, 25 jumping jacks.
Rounds three, four, and five – I attacked my heavy bag. I was not trying to knock the stuffing out of the bag; rather, a good solid punch. All with 25 jumping jacks in between each of the rounds.
Round six – After round five, I felt my arms getting heavy and did not want to kill them on another round of heavy bag hitting. So, I still punched my bag, but I tried to just touch it. My goal was to not let it move. This exercise of control is very challenging after five rounds. However, I liked the mental challenge of this for some strange reason. Then another 25 jumping jacks.
Round seven – Fury! I let out every bit of energy I had left and hit the bag, shadow boxed, jumping jacks, etc. When my timer went off I looked like Rocky after fighting Drago!
I finished up all of the routines with a lot of stretching and rehydrating. I am ready to try this routine again in a few days to compare results.
