Day 2 - Strength & Power Fitness Challenge

What’s up Aqua Training Bag Training community? I’m Coach Dan Palacios here on our 5x5 Fitness Challenge. Today is day two of the 5x5 Fitness Challenge.

We’re focusing on strength and power, so all of our exercises are going to reflect that. Make sure you stay with me. We’re going to get warmed up, we’re going to get a great workout in to build some muscle, burn some fat, and really get you fitness going in the right direction. Check it out.

Let’s get a little warmup going. We’re just going to hit a four punch combo, jab, cross, hook, uppercut to get the shoulders popping and then do some warmup movements around it. We’re right here, nice and easy.

Step into it, one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Get those shoulders popping. Let’s switch it southpaw. Right foot forward. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Boom, nice and easy. I know my heartrate’s getting up. Yours should be too. Let’s jog it in place. Bouncing on the toes, getting the balls of the feet, stay light on your feet. Make sure you’re moving, make sure you’re getting that heartrate up. Get those shoulders popping a little bit, get the arms moving. And we’re going to hit those jumping jacks. Get the arms moving up and down, get some good reach, let’s go forward and back. Nice and easy. And now we’re going to hit some squats. Get the hips moving. Feel the glutes squeeze. Feel the pressure going to your heels, and as you stand, fully stand and drive your hips forward, squeeze the glutes with each rep. Now we’re going to go into a coil stretch. One, two, three, engage the lats. Pull down on one side, push up on the other. Feel that balance between both sides. Really want to start getting this heart rate up. Let’s get back to our jab, cross, hook, uppercut combo. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Switch it up. Southpaw. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Good. Get a nice breath of air. In through the nose, hold it. Out through the mouth. Make sure you’re exhaling every time you hit the bag. Let’s jog it in place. Get that heart rate up. About 10 seconds, 10-20 seconds, get a little sweat going. Some jumping jacks. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Forward and back. Stretch that chest out. Get those shoulders moving. Don’t just move, move with intention. Make sure each muscle is doing the work it’s meant to. Getting into our squats. Three, four, five, weight back in the heels. When you’re sitting in a chair, it’s a little too far behind you. Want to make sure every muscle is getting its just work in. All right. Coil stretch, pull down, push up. Pull down, push up. Pull down, push up. Pull down, push up. Pull down, push up. I’m pretty warm, so let’s get into this work out. Check it out.

We got two-three punch combos on the Aqua bag today. Focusing on power, focusing on technique. Check them out right here. Today, it’s two power combos are going to be the cross, hook, hook. And then the hook, uppercut, uppercut.

We’re going to 10 of each from our dominant side. If you’re a lefty, you want your right foot forward. If you’re a righty, you want your left foot forward, so we get power off that back foot. Check out the cross, hook, hook combo. Here we go, focusing on power. We’re going to pivot, hook, hook. Pivot, hook, hook. That was the cross, hook, hook combo. Let’s see the hook, uppercut, uppercut combo. We’re starting with the left hand here. Again, focusing on power, dig into the bag a little bit more and put a lot of hip rotation into these movements. It’s going to be left hook, right uppercut, left uppercut. One, two, three. One, two, three. Now, let’s see the footwork a little bit on the cross, hook, hook combo. It’s pivot, hook, hook. Lot of movement in the hips, driving from the hips from the ground up. It’s cross, hook, hook. cross, hook, hook. cross, hook, hook. cross, hook, hook. cross, hook, hook. Now, the hook, uppercut, uppercut combo starting with the left. We’re left hook, right uppercut, left uppercut. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Hook, uppercut, uppercut. Hook, uppercut, uppercut.

Our first strength exercise on the Aqua training bag is going to be a compression squeeze with a press and pull back. So, it’s press, pull back. Press, pull back. Squeezing the chest, squeezing the back. Imagine you’re doing a constant isolated dumbbell fly and bench press as well as row at the same time. We’re going to hit this for 15-20 reps and keep that constant tension throughout this movement, trying to pop the ball as hard as we can. Again, the whole point of strength training is to build strength. We need muscular tension in order to do that. If we’re working with nothing but body weight, then we really have to make sure to squeeze through each rep. We’re going to squeeze the mat between our feet, as we come down, come up, squeeze the glutes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, driving through the heels with each rep, 10.

Second exercise is going to be our basic squat, keeping the back flat, weight down through the heels, squeezing into the mat, squeezing through the glutes and hips as we stand up through each rep.

Third exercise is going to be the pushup. It’s a classic. It’s a fantastic exercise and guess what, we got to do it. It’s great for the full body, it’s not just a chest exercise. What we want to do, is if we can’t do a full body push up from here, we’re going to come down to our knees, hook the heels and make sure that our entire body is falling forward together. We’re on the knuckles of our Aqua Training Bag gloves here. Fall forward, press up, making sure you’re squeezing your abs tight and squeezing your glutes with every rep. That’s our modified pushup. I’m going to hit our full body pushup, squeezing those glutes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10. And that right there is a great full body exercise to develop strength in your glutes, core, chest, shoulders and back. That’s the pushup, that’s what it’s all about.

All right team, so our last exercise here is going to be a true back exercise, focusing on thoracic extension, that means pulling our shoulders back and creating that loop in our spine. And then we’re pulling back into a cobra position. We’re calling these cobra pulls. One, two, actively squeezing the glutes, driving the hips into the floor, the pelvis into the floor and squeezing those should blades back, as if we’re doing a pull up. We can add a little bit of extra spice to it, by coiling into one side and coiling into the other side. And finding ourselves back at center. Squeeze it back, reach back, create that shoulder mobility. And counteract some of that sitting we’ve been doing at all of our desks, all that cell phone work. Coil, coil. Coil, coil. There you go, and that’s a strong postural exercise we can do to counteract some of the bad posture that we see sitting at our desk and doing our work all day.

All right Aqua Training Bag fan, thanks a lot for joining me today on our 5x5 Fitness Challenge for our strength training workout, here with the Aqua Bag. Very simple workout. WE had two power combos, that was our cross, hook, hook combo. Our hook, uppercut, uppercut combo. The power squeeze, compression squeeze on the Aqua Bag itself, plus the squat, the pushup, and the cobra extensions.

Make sure to tune in tomorrow for our balance and coordination workout where we challenge your overall coordination and ability to shift your weight from one foot to the other and remain balanced at the same time. Can’t wait to see you next time. See you next round!

P.S. Want to learn more about me, Dan Palacios? Visit my website, Kinetic Training at LiveKinetically.com and follow me on Instagram at @livekinetically