Full Body Strength and Conditioning Ideas for All Ages

This is a follow-up to a previous video on how to build more useful strength with a focus on integrating upper body, core, and lower body conditioning for better overall body awareness and neural activation.

Start with a basic squat with a boxing stance where one foot is forward and your arms are up in front of you with your fists hugging the sides of your head for protection.

From this position, squat down and as you rise out of each squat, jab forward with your lead arm and follow this up with a straight punch with your back arm, always striving to keep the non-punching arm up by your face for protection.

You can increase your speed as you develop a rhythm with this one-two drill. It’s ideal to do an equal number of repetitions from both sides.

Please take your time with this and go at a speed that is comfortable for you.

Another integrative body conditioning drill combines a deck squat with TaeKwonDo or Karate-style punches. You can do two or four punches and direct your punches straight out in front of you or rotate your trunk to punch side to side, all while maintaining a balanced stance, knees slightly bent.

If rolling back onto a mattress or the ground to do a deck squat isn’t convenient, you can do a simple body weight squat instead.

My favorite way of integrating upper body, core, and lower body conditioning is to do shadow forehands and backhands, with or without a racquet.

Even if you have little experience with racquet sports, you can mimic good technique, turning your body to the side, bending your knees, and powering up and forward with your legs as you extend you racquet or arm through an imaginary hitting zone.

Once you establish a good rhythm to your stroke, you can increase your pace, keeping a good bounce to your steps and staying on the balls of your feet.

You can do this without a racquet, but if it feels more natural to have something in your hand, you can hold a smaller object like a wooden spoon.

The real key to getting the most you can out of this drill is to drive up and forward from your legs as you swing your arm through the hitting zone.

On your backhand side, you can do one or two-handed backhands, whichever is more natural for you. Whichever you choose, drive up and forward with your legs with every stroke.

With a one-handed backhand, you want to drive your back arm slightly backward with each stroke as a counter balance, which will prevent your chest from opening up to face forward.

With a two-handed backhand, your chest will naturally rotate to face forward, so you want to allow your back leg to rotate forward at the end of your stroke.

Here is one more set of forehands and backhands with and without a racquet for those who would like more footage to follow-along to.

Five to ten sets of shadow forehands and backhands with a 30-second break in between each set makes for an excellent cardio session beyond the integrated body conditioning that occurs.

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