Today’s Workout 59: The weight-plate circuit to shred your shoulders and core

You know that stack of weight plates sitting by the leg press machine? It’s time to use them for something besides the leg press machine.

Because, here’s the deal: While lots of dudes apparently love to load up that sucker with as many plates as they possibly can, only to do the shortest (and most useless) leg presses imaginable, you can do a hell of a lot more with just one 45-lb plate than you ever imagined.

And even if you’re more of the powerlifting type, you’d be surprised at just how versatile a weight plate is—especially in this five-move circuit, where every exercise utilizes the plate for maximum muscle growth.

Directions

We recommend doing this dynamic warmup to fire up your muscles and increase range of motion before attempting this workout.

You’ll do this workout as a circuit, meaning you’ll complete each exercise consecutively without rest. Once you’ve finished all exercises, rest for 30 to 60 seconds. Repeat the entire circuit for 4 to 6 rounds.

Depending upon your ability, you may shorten or lengthen the rest period. You may also complete more or fewer rounds.

For more upper-body work: 

Check out one of our favorite explosive arm workouts to blow up your biceps and triceps, our 20-minute workout to get hard ‘core’ abs, and our 30-minute abs workout.

For a complete archive of our daily quick-hit routines, go to mensfitness.com/todaysworkout.