Category: Wednesday Workout

Wednesday Workout: 8 Minute AMRAP Circuits

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Hello! I’m so happy to have more time to blog this week because I’ve been doing some good workouts that are totally share-worthy. Although it can be hard to fit everything in during busy/stressful times (hello, moving!), doing my best to stay consistent with my workouts is something that’s really important to me. They may not be the longest or most intense, but even 15-20 minutes of just bodyweight exercises is better than nothing, and sometimes exactly what I need. I have to be careful of not over-doing it with workouts during stressful times because working out is a stress on the body, but less-intense, bodyweight workouts are generally doing me more good than harm. My fellow Boston blogger friend, Stephanie, wrote a really great blog post talking about this exact thing: The Stress-Fitness Balance. All too often workouts are the first thing that gets pushed aside in stressful, busy times, but her post is a good reminder on how to gauge your stress levels and figure out if maybe a quickie workout might be exactly what you need to relieve some stress and get a clear head.

Which is a perfect segway into this workout! For those of you who are feeling short on time these days, this workout has the option of being as short as 8 minutes or as long as 24-32 minutes. Each circuit is an 8 minute AMRAP (As many rounds as possible- while keeping good form, of course!) consisting of a lower body move, cardio, upper body move and core move. Choose a challenging weight so that you’re not whipping through the reps- I promise you’ll feel it 😉 I think I ended up getting through 3-3.5 rounds in the 8 minutes.

8 minute AMRAP circuits
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Wednesday Workout: Ramp Lunges & Total Body Circuit Bootcamp

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Hi! I hope your Wednesday is off to a fantastic start 🙂 I think you’re really going to like today’s workout… 1. because it’s no equipment necessary so you can do it anywhere and 2. because it makes the booty burnnnn! I’m always trying to come up with fun and unique workouts for my Tuesday night bootcampers. These girls are paying me money to workout for an hour, so I want them to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth AND be able to hopefully take some of the workouts home with them to do on their own.

I usually try to get to the gym during my lunch break to do MY workout so that I can focus on them during class, but last week it just wasn’t in the cards for me to get to the gym before teaching so I ended up doing it with them. It was fun to be getting sweaty and breathing heavy with them- I think they appreciated seeing me work as hard as them 😉 I also heard one of the girls asking another how class was since she wasn’t able to make it. I walked in on her going “oh, that must have been a hard workout. She always makes the workouts harder when she does them with us!” I had to laugh because although this workout did leave me sucking wind, I had planned the workout long before I realized I’d be doing it with them! It worked out perfectly, though, because this was a workout I didn’t want to miss- hope you like it as much as we all did!

Ramp lunges & total body circuit bootcamp

So, the way it works is you’re always going to be going back to the benchmark exercise, which is: lunging up the hill or ramp (we used the ramp in a parking garage!), jog down, sprint up the hill/ramp, jog down and then repeat it once more. When you finish 2 rounds of that, you’ll do each bodyweight pyramid circuit above. The moves should be fairly common moves, so I’ll spare you (and myself!) from writing out all the details 🙂 I will give you some notes in terms of reps:

  • 30 side dips- 30 to each side
  • 20 side lunges- 10 to each side
  • 30 butt kicks- each leg comes up 30 times
  • 20 1-legged deadlifts- 10 on each leg
  • 50 high knees- each knee comes up 50 times
  • 30 mountain climbers- each knee comes in 30 times
  • 20 plank w/shoulder taps- each hand taps to the opposite shoulder 20 times
  • HRPU= hand release push-up

This is a great workout to take on the road or to do outside near your home if you’re looking to try something knew and not go to the gym. I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to avoid the gym as much as possible as the summer comes to an end. We’ll have all winter long where we won’t be able to workout outside, so soak it up!

Questions for you: Have you ever tried lunging on an incline? Do you like to sprint? Are you avoiding the gym, too?

Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute Full Body Workout

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Good morning! It’s been a WHILE since I’ve shared a workout with you, huh? Fear not, even though I took 3 days off from workouts last week, other than that I’ve been working out consistently! I’ve actually been participating in Jill Coleman’s #20×20 Workout, which is all about short, intense workouts. While the workouts aren’t what I traditionally like to focus on these days (think: biceps curls, triceps extensions, etc.), it’s been fun to challenge myself with heavier weights and let me tell you- I’m always feeling it the next day! Her leg workout actually left me sore for 3 days… and I had to shorten it…

The #20×20 workout challenge is actually what sparked the idea behind this workout, but it’s got a lot of Jen Sinkler and Neghar Fonooni flare to it because, what can I say? I love their workouts and workout formats! I challenge you to use a weight that is heavy and challenging, but one that will not compromise your form. If you do this, I promise you’ll be sweaty and tired by the end. I actually had another short AMRAP scheduled to complete after this and was too tired to complete it 🙂

20 Minute Full Body Workout
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Wednesday Workout: Progression Bootcamp Stations

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Hi! Can you believe the weather yesterday? I had to cancel bootcamp because it was so awful in Wakefield and we didn’t want to be caught in another storm. Thankfully I worked out during my lunch break otherwise it would’ve been really hard to get myself to the gym after work! Speaking of my bootcamp, today’s workout is another workout I did with my bootcampers a few weeks ago. Everyone loved it and one person even told me she did it with her roommate last week, so I figured I should probably share it with you, too!

This workout is great because:

  • you don’t need any equipment besides a timer
  • it can be done anywhere
  • it works everything: upper, lower, core, cardio
  • it’s always changing so you won’t get bored

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t really like 60 second intervals of work. I do them, but mostly when we are going right from one thing to the next because I know time will get wasted in the transitions. I prefer 45 seconds of work because I think you get a much more effective blast of work in 45 seconds rather than 60 seconds and you reduce the risk of losing form and slacking off.

For this workout, I call it a progression because every station focuses on one particular move or exercise and you progress up to more intense variations of it. By the 3rd exercise in each station, you’re really feeling the burn- trust me! I’ve shortened the workout for the purposes of this post (I feel like the shorter workouts tend to be more popular than the longer ones on here), but will also let you know what additional stations we did at the end in case you have more time when you try this out.

Progression Bootcamp Workout
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Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute AMRAP Quickie Total Body Workout

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Hi! How’s your week going so far? I wanted to share a workout that I did last week that was inspired by lots of different people and workout formats, including:

Ever since I started following Neghar and ever since I bought the Lift Weights Faster 2, I’ve been really loving the short, balls to the walls workouts that get you in and out of the gym quickly. There used to be a time where I was spending 2 hours a day at the gym, but these days there are just so many other things I’d rather be doing with my time than spending hours of it at the gym. Call me crazy, I know 😉

This workout had me sweating and working really hard, but the beauty is that it was over in just 20 minutes- perfect!

20 Minute AMRAP Quickie Total Body Workout
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