Hi, I’m Laurie Hernandez
here to flip your workout
into something extraordinary
with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.
Today, we are cirquing it out with Araz,
a performer on Zumanity,
a show that’s a seductive twist on reality
and that makes the provocative playful.
Ready to work out the CirqueWay?
Let’s Cirque It Out.
Hey everyone!
Today we are Cirquing It Out with Araz.
What’s up?
Clearly he performs the dislocation act
in Cirque’s adults only show Zumanity
and here we have performance conditioning specialist
Bre Dudzik.
- What’s going on. - What’s up.
In this episode,
we’re going to concentrate on flexibility
but not just everyday flexibility.
We’re going to see what kind of flexibility it takes
to be a Cirque du Soleil dislocation artist
and you don’t have to be a dislocation artist yourself
for this workout to help you be more flexible.
Ready to rock your inner dislocation artist,
let’s Cirque It Out.
Araz’s training plan requires development
of strength and stamina.
We need to keep his body fat low
and his muscle hypertrophy at a minimum
so as not to sacrifice his mobility and flexibility
he needs to perform his act.
The purpose of his full-body circuit style workout
is to keep his heart rate elevated for the entire 30 minutes.
We do this by utilizing shorter rest periods,
body weight exercises, lighter loads
and higher rep ranges.
We will hit all the major muscle groups
with an emphasis on his core
and we’re gonna start with a warmup
that’s gonna include a band
and also his body weight.
So, for Araz’s movement prep
and to warm up his shoulder joints,
we’re gonna be doing some band pull aparts.
We’re gonna go 5 across the body,
5 diagonal in each direction
and then 5 over the head.
We notice as Araz does this,
we pull apart all the way completely
so that he touches the band to his chest
with every rep.
We don’t want to overdue this exercise of this warmup
as to fatigue the shoulder joints and the elbow joints.
I also include this warmup in Araz’s movement prep
because he can do his own dislocation flare on it.
Do not try that at home.
For Araz’s next movement prep
we’re gonna be doing some body weight walking lunges.
We’re gonna do 5 on each leg to start.
You can progress this exercise by adding weights in your hands
if you want to,
otherwise we want to make sure
and focus on form and function
by keeping the chest nice and straight
and also the torso upright.
As Araz performs these,
we notice that his chest is staying nice and straight,
his hands are down by his side.
If you feel a little more off balance,
you can always put your hands on your hips
for a little more stability.
If you want to challenge yourself a little bit more
you can put your hands overhead
to make it a bit harder.
Always keeping in mind
that form while we perform.
Excellent, thank you.
Now that we are warmed up and ready to go,
we’re gonna elevate Araz’s heart rate
by doing some box step ups,
first with just his body weight
and then next with some dumbbells in his hands.
We’re gonna do 5 on each leg to start.
Alternating legs as we go;
the faster we do this,
the higher that heart rate gets elevated.
One suggestion I have
if you don’t have access to a box at home
is to use stairs, step stool,
anything that’s going to give you
any sort of leverage.
Another progression that we can add
is a calf raise with the step.
Perfect.
We’re gonna challenge Araz even more now
by adding dumbbells in each hand.
These are just 10-pound dumbbells.
I suggest starting with a lighter weight
if you’ve got access to 3 or 4 or 5 pounds,
those work as well
but again with that step-up
it’s about elevating that heart rate the entire time.
If we want to add that knee raise.
If we don’t have dumbbells,
I suggest finding some stuff around the home;
if you’re doing this at home,
I would find some soup cans to hold on,
those are each about 2 pounds each.
And one final progression
if we want to make it truly challenging
is to put the dumbbells up over the shoulders
or up over the head.
When those dumbbells are up over our shoulders and over our head,
we notice that we have to stabilize our core a lot more
which is gonna be a little more taxing
on the nervous system
and also on the respiratory system.
Excellent.
Now that we’re warmed up are we ready to work out?
So for Araz’s circuit style workout,
we’re gonna break this into 3 different exercises.
The first exercise we’re gonna perform
is a one-arm dumbbell bent over row
using a 15-pound dumbbell and a box.
When Araz performs this exercise,
we want to make sure that he maintains
a tabletop back position,
that there’s no rounding of the shoulders.
One specific cue that I tend to give people
is pretend that you’re starting a lawnmower with your elbow,
really pull with the elbow
versus pulling with the bicep.
One suggestion I have for Araz when he does this
is we also want to keep a neutral neck.
That natural curvature of the spine
should always be maintained while we do this.
Second exercise we’re gonna perform with Araz
is called a bench pistol.
With a pistol squat what we’re doing is
we’re utilizing just one leg at a time.
One thing that we want to focus on is
if you’re just starting out with this exercise,
you can use your hands to push off with your legs
but we still want to lead with that butt.
If Araz wants to make it a little more challenging,
he can step up onto the box
performing the same exercise
by bringing his foot forward
and dipping down.
Now it looks like it’s easier
because his range of motion is less,
but it’s actually harder
because he’s not using a lot of his glute muscles
and a lot of his hamstring muscles,
he’s relying more on his quadriceps.
If you’re unsure if you’re able to perform this exercise at first,
I’d make sure you can complete
a body weight squat on your own.
And also,
trying to do this while holding on to an object that’s stationary
such as a wall or a corner.
Excellent.
For Araz’s third exercise in his circuit,
we’re gonna be doing a floor close grip bench press
using 15-pound dumbbells.
He’s gonna come all the way down
touching the chest with the bell of the dumbbell
and back up.
The purpose of this closed grip or neutral grip as we call it
is to not only target the inner pec muscles
but also hit a lot of that tricep which is the back of the arm.
Slow and controlled
is the name of the game with this exercise.
We also want to keep an eye on our elbows.
A lot of people when they perform a bench press
regardless of their grip,
those elbows start to flare out.
Now that Araz has finished this last exercise
of his 3-set circuit,
we’re gonna move on to his core circuit.
The first exercise we’re gonna be doing
is called the hollow hold
where we bring our arms and our legs up.
We maintain what we call this elongated U shape.
We can hold this for as few as 15 seconds
to as many as one minute.
You can see immediately he will start to shake
and that’s because that core is getting a great great workout.
A cue that I give individuals when we’re doing this exercise
is to make sure we’re pushing our low-back
into the ground.
The next exercise we’re gonna perform in his core circuit
is a plank on a physio ball.
We do this by placing our forearms on the ball,
putting our feet out behind us,
dropping those hips so that we maintain that tabletop
all the way from the shoulders down to the feet.
We maintain a plank
anywhere from about 30 seconds to a minute.
Now for Araz, he’s been doing this ball playing
for quite some time
so we challenge him a little bit more
by having him roll the ball further out towards me.
And back in.
One way that we can do this exercise
is always just a standard plank
on our forearms on the ground.
A lot of people don’t have access to these balls
so a plank is just as good as a plank on a ball.
You’re gonna get a little bit more bang for your buck
by having to stabilize on an unsteady surface.
Anytime we notice that those hips are starting to drop,
that’s our body’s way of saying that our core is fatigue
and we should stop the exercise.
Third exercise we’re gonna be doing in Araz’s core circuit
is a reverse crunch.
You’ll notice that he’s actually holding my ankles on this exercise
but if you don’t have a partner to do this with,
you can always grab a stable surface like the corner of a wall
or a piece of furniture that doesn’t move.
As he does this exercise,
we go into what we call a “flag position”
where he’s actually lifting his butt
completely off the ground.
If we’re unable to do that
and we need to make it a little bit easier,
we can always bend the knees
and not bring the hips up off the ground,
but if you feel like you can’t complete 10 reps of those,
I suggest regressing back.
Now that we have completed Araz’s three set circuit
and also his core circuit,
we really want to focus on his mobility and flexibility
to cool down.
So we’re gonna go through some of the same fair band exercises
that we did at the start
again focusing on form.
For him we want to go through the ranges of motion
that he would normally do in a show.
He oftentimes gets very very tight
after a strength and conditioning
as do we all,
but for him,
we want to make sure that those joints
still remain fluid and mobile.
Another thing that we do as a cooldown
is we want to make sure and really stretch out his quadricep muscles
in the front of the leg,
anytime we do any of those pistol squats
or those step-ups,
we notice that the quadriceps get very very tight
so he’s going to do a basic quadricep stretch
where he places the heels of his feet
right close next to his butt cheeks,
he’s gonna lean all the way back
until he feels a deep stretch in his quads.
When we do this, we want to make sure
that the knees remain on the ground
and that we have a slight arch in our back
to really get a pull out of the quads.
The third and final cooldown
is going to be a basic split that he’s going to perform.
If you are unable to do a split at home
and just a basic hamstring stretch
where you’re standing straight and bending at the hips
will suffice just fine.
And that’s it for Araz’s dislocation workout.
Excuse me, I’m really sorry but I have to go,
there is a show going on.
Bye.
That’s it for this week, don’t forget to Cirque It Out.
Bye.
You know, this kind of physical performance
is all about having fun
so I hope that those of you watching had fun too
and that you keep trying this workout
to see how it benefits you.
Don’t forget to stay active with Cirque du Soleil on our next episode,
there’s a lot more. See you soon.