How often do you finish your training feeling invigorated and satisfied that you have made every minute of your session count? Or do you sometimes feel like you could have done more during your workout? Whether your goal is to maximise the burning of calories or to increase muscle size and strength, a finisher is the perfect addition to your session to leave you feeling like you ended on a high.

What Are Workout Finishers

Finishers are like a mini training session within your main training. As the name would suggest, these mini sessions usually come at the end of your workout. The goal of a finisher is to enhance your training in the last few minutes. Finishers generally consist of circuit or interval training techniques that make use of high intensity cardio or strength training exercises with minimum rest periods.

A variety of equipment can be used for finishers such as battle ropes, kettlebells and barbells. We have selected Dumbbells and a Weight Bench for our finishers as they are highly versatile by providing resistance over a large range of exercises. Transitioning between exercises is easy and if you need to change the dumbbell weight it is as simple as picking up the next set of weights, this is particularly easy if you have a dumbbell rack with weights loaded on to it . This is important as we want to reduce the resting period to get the maximum effect of the exercise

You need to focus on the quality of exercise, instead of the quantity. If the intensity is not high enough you lose the impact that a finisher could have on your training. Two to four exercises are an ideal range and shouldn’t take you longer than 10 minutes to complete.

Just google finishers and you will see an endless array of equipment and options. It is important to understand how different types of finishers can align with your training goals. We are going to break down our finishers into 3 categories based on the type of training you are doing.

Dumbbell Metabolic Conditioning Finisher

A metabolic conditioning training session is all about the calories. You want to train at a very high anaerobic intensity. This will not only burn off extra calories during the session but will take advantage of a higher Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). This EPOC results in the continued burning off calories over the next 24 hours to replace the body’s energy stores.

Good examples of circuits suitable to a metabolic conditioning finisher would be a 20/10 Tabata routine, EMOM’s, AMRAPS and other short HIIT routines. Full body exercises should be selected. Working more muscles in a single movement will increase the calories burnt. Exercises should be a combination of cardio exercises such as burpees and strength exercises such as kettlebell swings.

For this finisher we are going to use a ladder circuit. The first round will consist of a single dumbbell thruster and 10 burpees. The second round will have 2 thrusters followed by 9 burpees. Only rest when you absolutely need to and keep going until you have completed 10 thrusters and 1 burpee.

Dumbbell Thrusters

Reps: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Thrusters are a full body exercise, requiring most of the leg muscles as well as the shoulders, triceps, and core muscles. This helps burn a large number of calories.

Burpees

Reps: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Burpees are probably the most infamous of all finisher exercises. This is a lung busting exercise that will push you into that high anaerobic zone to stimulate the EPOC response.

Dumbbell Hypertrophy Finisher

The key to building muscle is creating fatigue in the muscle. You might have heard the term Time Under Tension. Keeping the muscle under tension for longer periods is what stimulates muscle growth. Basically you want to train a muscle to failure to get that response.

This does not mean selecting the heaviest weight you can find and only completing one or two reps. To build proper fatigue you need to be doing 8 - 12 reps. Two common techniques to maximise training to failure are the rest-pause and drop set methods.

Rest-pause involves you getting as close to failure as possible for a particular exercise, pausing for 10 - 15 seconds as a rest period and then starting the same exercise again and proceeding to failure. Drop sets differ in the fact that there is no rest. You perform and exercise to failure and then quickly select a lighter weight and continue the exercise to the second failure.

By doing rest-pause or drop set routines, the second part of the exercise essentially becomes the finisher by adding an additional amount of fatigue to stimulate muscle growth. It might not come at the end of the session but it will have the greatest impact on hypertrophy training.

An alternative method to have the finisher at the end of the session involves setting up a circuit designed to create muscular fatigue. To do this we will pre-fatigue a muscle group with an isolation exercise, then do a multi-jointed exercise where secondary muscles are active to help the fatigued primary muscle to keep contracting even as it has fatigued. As an added bonus you could also include a third exercise that then isolates the secondary muscle group.

For this finisher we are going to use a circuit at the end of a chest workout. We will use an isolation exercise to fatigue the pecs, a multi-joined exercise to increase the time under tension and top it off with a second isolation exercise to fatigue the secondary muscle group.

Dumbbell Flyes

Reps: 8-12

Pre-fatigue of the pecs. Keep the reps slow and controlled.

Push Ups

Reps: To failure

The secondary muscle groups which include the triceps and deltoids will help squeeze out those extra reps to get maximum fatigue in the pecs.

Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Extension

Reps: To failure

The triceps have been active in the push ups and now isolating them will help to develop bigger triceps.

Dumbbell Strength Finisher

High Intensity Resistance Training or HIRT is not only a form of strength training but can be a fantastic finisher. It allows you to maximise the last amount of strength training as well as pushing the heart rate up to give you that satisfied feeling at the end of a session. While HIIT style workouts that are popular with the MetCon training require high reps to get your heart rate up, the focus of HIRT is still strength. You will still be using heavier weights with reps in the lower range of 5 - 8 reps.

So how does the heart rate get elevated? You want to select as many multi jointed exercises as possible and then link all the exercises together in a circuit without rest between exercises or sets. To achieve this you will want to be using the same equipment as much as possible to reduce the change over time.

This is where dumbbells are so versatile. You should select a weight that allows you to complete 5 reps with you feeling like you had the ability to do another one or two reps. Don’t select a weight that you struggle to finish 5 reps as you will then be forced to have rests and lose the effect of the finisher. You also shouldn’t include too many exercises. You don’t want this to become just another circuit. Get the strength gains, get the elevated heart rate, keep the training time short.

For this finisher we focus on the horizontal push and pull movements by selecting the multi-joined exercises of the bench press and bent over row. We then finish the circuit by isolating the secondary muscle groups of the triceps and biceps. This gives us a complete upper body workout that can be finished in under 10 minutes.

Dumbbell Bent Over Row

Reps: 5

Multi-joined exercise for horizontal pulls that target the back muscles.

Dumbbell Incline Bench Press

Reps: 5

Multi-jointed push exercise that targets the chest.

Dumbbell Alternating Bicep Curl

Reps: 5

Isolation of the bicep muscles that have already been activated in the bent over row.

Dumbbell Triceps Extension

Reps: 5

Isolation of the triceps muscle that have already been activated in the bench press.

Dumbbell Lower Leg Finisher

Leg exercises can be classified as knee dominant and hip dominant. The front squat largely targets the knee dominant muscles while the deadlift targets the hip dominant muscles. To start the circuit we have included walking lunges that are a single leg exercise that works muscles from both groups.

Dumbbell Walking Lunges

Reps: 5

A single leg exercise that works the glutes, quads, and hamstrings.

Dumbbell Front Squats

Reps: 5

To transition, just lift the dumbbells to the shoulders and do a front squat to target the glutes and quads.

Dumbbell Romanian Deadlifts

Reps: 5

The dumbbells can now be lowered to perform this hip dominant exercise that targets the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back.

Dumbbell Core Finisher

In this core finisher, all three exercises are targeting the rectus hip flexors, rectus abdominis, and oblique muscles for a complete ab workout.

Dumbbell Windshield Wiper

Reps: 5

Windshield wipers are excellent for targeting the hip flexors, rectus abdominis, and the obliques. By adding in the dumbbells you make the control harder as well as requiring shoulder stability.

Dumbbell Side Plank Press

Reps: 5

The static plank hold largely focuses on the obliques. By adding in the press, you are not only increasing the weight during the plank but making it harder to stabilise as the weight moves around.

Dumbbell Russian Twists

Reps: 5

Shifting the weight side to side requires stability of the core. To make it harder, increase the weight or lengthen your arms. In addition to the muscles already working, this exercise requires the erector spinae.

Think of finishers as being the cherry on the top of your training. You have followed the program but now with a short extra push you can increase the gains, leave the gym with a flow of endorphins and have some fun with your training. While we have outlined finishers for your different training goals you are also able to mix it up. For instance if you are in a hypertrophy phase but feel like burning some extra calories then add a MetCon finisher to the end of the program.

Have fun planning some finishers that keep your sessions fresh with something to look forward to at the end of the session and give your training a boost.

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Tags: Equipment > Dumbbells ; Exercise Type > Strength ; Misc > Workout