5 New Workout Flows

Tack these five workouts, from flow master Eric Leija, onto your training sessions for more muscle, stability, and mobility.

- Andrew Gutman

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a harder worker than Eric Leija.

The resident kettlebell master at the Onnit Academy trains a variety of one-on-one and group classes at the Austin, TX-based gym, travels the country teaching kettlebell seminars, manages his own website (ericleija.com), trains online clients, and is constantly creating new content for his 500K Instagram followers.

Still, Leija manages to bust his ass on the daily in the gym, combining his barbell strength work with his creative flows—that is, two or more similar moves strung together. Not to be confused with supersets or tri-sets, these exercises are done in a way that they flow—hence the name—right into the next. Instead of doing a bench press and then a pullup, a common superset, you’d do a deadlift to a high pull, as the two moves can be done together fluidly.

Leija likes this style of training because it’s quick and keeps the heart rate high. Usually, he’ll start or end his heavier training with these flows, or he’ll do them separately if he’s in a pinch.

Here, Leija outlines five flows that you can do yourself with a barbell, dumbbells, or your body weight.

1 FOR A STRONG CORE

PUSHUP TO ROW FLOW

“This one is tough,” Leija says. “You kill two birds with one stone, getting the pushing and pulling from the pushup and row, while also challenging your core and stability.”

Directions: Do 5 to 8 reps of the push-up and then a row on each side, followed by 30 seconds of rest. Repeat for 5 sets.

A DIVE BOMBER PUSHUP

With a hand on each dumbbell, pike your hips up and then dive your head between the weights. Then straighten out your back so you’re in a bear position (as shown).

B RENEGADE ROW