Exercise “Mash Ups”

Something I like to do when planning exercise classes is to take a couple of standard exercises and put them together.  I call it an exercise “mash-up”.

Let’s start with the standard squat.

The squat is a great exercise.  It works your quads, hamstrings, glutes, calf muscles and core.  No wonder it’s such an essential part of most workouts.  Once you’ve got it mastered, you can progress and add weight to place greater impact on these muscles.

A sumo squat is a variation on a squat. Rather than your feet pointing straight ahead in the 12 o’clock position, they are angled outwards. The left foot points at 11 o’clock and the right foot at one o’clock. This places more emphasis on the inner thigh adductor muscles.

To make a mash up exercise, I’m going to start by standing upright, feet together, holding a dumbbell in each hand at chest level.  Then I’m going to jump out into a sumo squat, and then punch out my left and right hands alternately.  This will target the shoulders, triceps, forearm and upper back (trapezius). Your obliques (muscles on your side) will be engaged controlling the rotation of your arm, and all the lower body muscles will be engaged keeping you in the squat position. Then you will jump back into the starting position before repeating for 12-15 reps.

The exercise needs a name - I’m going to call it a Sumo Fighter.

I do this with lots of exercises, to target more muscles in a movement and also to mix things up and make it interesting.