Tag Archives: layering exercise

PT Session – Layering

This post is especially for Sam at Midsummer 365 Project as she always lets us know what she has done in her PT sessions (and her gym sessions too, it’s the purpose of her blog) and I commented that I should probably write about my PT session last Tuesday.  So, while I don’t usually write about my individual gym sessions, here it is:

My PT session this week was on Tuesday afternoon.  I don’t really like exercising in the afternoon, mornings are much better, but as I pick up my son from school on a Tuesday and school is about a mile from the gym it seems silly to go to the gym in the morning, then go home to have to then go back out again in the afternoon, so afternoon PT session it is.

When I met up with my trainer he said that we were going to “attempt” to complete 4 sets of layering exercises.  Now, for those of you who don’t know layering is a set of 5 exercises for a set period of time but instead of doing all exercises as one set, you start with one then add another, and another and so on.  Hence, layering.  I’ve done it before but only one set of exercises and that was hard.  Doing 4 different sets with a cardio “rest” break in the middle to bring my heart rate back down in an hour was going to be tough going.  Well, I did it and this is what I did:

Layer set 1 – Whole body (35s per layer, 5 layers, 35s rest between each layer)

  1. Jumps on to boxes – I had to stand between 2 boxes and jump to land with one foot on each box, squat and jump back down between the boxes; this was done for every layer

    Plank-ups – imagine a box on each side to go up on to too

  2. Plank ups – plank on elbows, rise to hands, then put hands on boxes (couldn’t let the boxes go to waste now could we), then go back to the floor, then elbows; from layer 2
  3. Mountain climbers with hands on box – these were actually not too bad; from layer 3
  4. Get-ups – lie on back, roll to standing without putting hands on floor.  I was supposed to hold a bar but it kept pulling my shoulder so I was allowed to do it without; for layer 4 and 5
  5. 1/2 twist jumps – jump through 180 to face the other way and then jump back.  Easy, right?  Not if you’re like me and can only jump one way.  I got very dizzy after 35s of 1/2 twist jumps.  Must learn to jump to the right as well as the left.  Fortunately, only had to do this for 1 layer.

Total time for this layer set – 11 minutes 5 seconds
Rest/cardio – treadmill 3 minutes at 6.5k/h

Layer set 2 – Core (30s per layer, 5 layers, 30s rest between each layer)

  1. Sit-ups
  2. Plank while pushing/pulling a 10 kg ViPR
  3. Supermans on hands and knees
  4. Sit-ups with a twist holding a bar
  5. Jackknife while holding a bar

Total time for this layer set – 9 minutes 30 seconds
Rest/cardio – cross trainer 3 minutes

Layer set 3 – Arms (25s per layer, 4 layers, 25s rest between each layer)

This should have had 5 layers but I couldn’t do one of them due to a ‘funny’ shoulder – bicep curl followed by a punch out at shoulder height holding a dumbbell.  I couldn’t even do the combination without a weight although I can do a bicep curl and a punch out separately, I just couldn’t do the transfer from one to the other.

  1. Push-ups with one hand on a box, transferring from one side to the other by walking my hands over the box after each push-up.
  2. Bent over row
  3. Row in plank position using the box.  Walking hands over the box after each row.  This box had a lot of use!
  4. Shoulder press.

Total time for this layer set – 5 minutes 25 seconds
Rest/cardio – wave machine for 3 minutes

Layer set 4 – Legs (20s per layer, 5 (6 really) layers, 20s rest between each layer)

  1. Knee raise, turn to lunge, holding bar across shoulders. This layer was done twice, 20s each side.
  2. Chimney squats with ViPR – well that’s what my trainer called them.  I had to hold a ViPR vertically and squat until the end touched the ground.
  3. Calf raises on box holding ViPR
  4. ViPR flips – flip the ViPR end over end twice then back again
  5. Deadlifts with ViPR

Total time for this layer set – 8 minutes
Rest/cardio – I know I did something for 3 minutes but I can’t remember what!

We finished with stretching for about 5 minutes.  Yay!  My favourite part of working out.

Needless to say, I ached on Wednesday and was actually still aching when I went to the gym on Thursday too.