Can You Do The Chalean Extreme Workout?
Here is an article that I wrote on my other blog, I thought that it would be helpful for anyone who was interested in the Chalean Extreme workout.
Before you begin your Chalean Extreme journey, it is important to know if you can even physically do the ChaLean Extreme workout. First you need to do the fitness test, to see if you are even in shape for the workouts. For the Fit test you will need a stopwatch, wall, towel, pen or pencil, comfortable clothes, water, 12 inch ruler and free weights ranging from 5 – 20 lbs. or resistance bands. There are eight parts to the Chalean extreme evaluation, you being with doing about 5 minutes of warm up. The warm up is crucial because it will help you to prevent injury that could happen. The warm up can including light jogging, jumping jacks, etc.
The first exercise you will do after the warm up are push ups. All you need to do, is complete as many push ups as you can do without a break, if you cannot perform a push up on your toes, than you can do the knee option. Just make sure that you keep good form, no butt in the air, flex your abs and butt, and do not lover your head. After you are done, mark how many push ups you did, whether on your toes or on your knees.
The 2nd exercise in the Chalean Extreme fit test is crunches, it is the same goal as push ups, do as many as possible. Lay on the ground with bent knees, with your hands behind your head, lift your shoulders off the ground until you come to a 45 degree angle. Perform as many as possible without having your shoulders hit the ground and make sure you do not pull on your head when you perform a crunch.
Thirdly, squats. Again, do as many as possible. Begin with your feet shoulder width apart and squat down like you are sitting in a chair. Keep your back straight and your knees bent, make sure your knees do not bend past your toes. To keep your balance, you might want to stick out your arms straight from your chest. Make sure your weight is focused on the back of your heels. Lastly so the Squats slowly.
The Fourth workout is the Forearm Plank, for this exercise you will need the stopwatch. To perform this workout , get in a push up position, but instead of being on your hands, lie down on your elbows with your forearms and hands faced forward on the ground. Start the timer and get into plank position, holding yourself up on your toes and your elbows, make sure you tighten your abs and butt. Go as long as possible and record your time.
Fifth, do an Overhead Shoulder Press. For this exercise you will need to do 10-12 reps with dumbbells or resistance bands. You will need to pick a weight so that by the 12th rep you can barely push it up, this is important because the Chalean Extreme program focuses on doing reps until your muscles pretty much fail. For the Overhead Press, stand with your feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, and back straight. Hold the weights or the band handles in your hands so that they are just above shoulder height or resting on your shoulders, then push the weights up straight over you head and slowly back down.
The Sixth workout is a Bicep curl. You will need weights or bands for this exercise. Again you want to pick a weight heavy enough so you almost fail at the 12th rep. This is pretty simple, it is just a standard bicep curl. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, and slightly bent knees. With your arms down and your elbows by the side of your body, lift up the weights and stop just before you get to your shoulders. Do not rush it! Count to 4 when you are curling up to meet your bicep, and then do a 4 count on the way down.
The last exercise is a Sit and Reach, you will need the ruler for this one. This is a flexibility test. Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you. place the ruler vertically in between your legs, with the bottom of the ruler even with the bottom of your feet. Stretch three times with your hands stacked on each other. Record each stretch, if you reach past the ruler and your feet, than you meet the minimum requirements for the ChaLean Extreme workout.
Related posts:
I am also doing the insanity workout rountine. I am on my 3rd week of the workout, but unfortunately the first 2 weeks I was working out in the wrong pair of shoes and have really hurt my ankles. I saw that you started the rountine with a rolled ankle, and I was wondering what helped you get through this with that kind of pain. I now have a pair of under armour shoes, but my ankles still give out when I do certain jumps during this workout. Any suggestions?
Thanks!