Wednesday Workout: Jump Rope & Body Weight Circuits

Good morning! I have a workout to share with you today that’s PERFECT for weekends where you’re away or if you’re traveling for work… or if you just don’t want to go to the gym 😉 All you need is a jump rope and your body, and if you don’t have a jump rope you can just pretend and do “air jump roping”- no biggie at all.

I created this workout a few weeks ago when it was a beautiful day and I didn’t want to go into the gym during my lunch break. I didn’t want to run because I had run the day before so I came up with a workout that got me sweaty while also allowing me to get a tan 😉 Bonus? It left me surprisingly sore for a few days. Wait, now that I think of it, it’s not really a bonus because I was actually really sore which wasn’t fun. I guess that’s what happens when you do high reps of exercises that you haven’t done in a while! Regardless, I liked the format a lot… and I think you will, too!

The way the workout works is that you’ll start each round of each circuit with jump roping. You’ll do 3 rounds of each circuit and you’ll decrease the number of jumps by 25 each round. So, for Circuit 1, you’ll do 100 jumps, 20 squats, 15 lunges, 10 push-ups and then for round 2 of circuit 1 you’ll do 75 jumps, 20 squats, 15 lunges, 10 push-ups. Your last round will only be 50 jumps.

Jump Rope & Body Weight Circuits

Otherwise I think this is fairly straight forward, which is how I’m tending to keep my workouts these days. SLDL= single leg deadlift if you’re not familiar with that abbreviation.

All in all with a warm up and cool down this workout took me about 40-45 minutes, which is longer than I normally spend on my workouts but considering it was body weight and not a TON of cardio, it felt like the perfect amount of time. You could shorten it by only doing 2 rounds of each circuit, cutting back on reps or only doing 2 circuits.

Let me know if you try this!

Wednesday Workout: The 1000 Rep Workout

Good morning! I mentioned on Instagram last week that I had a day where I could’ve easily skipped a workout. It was pouring rain, I was in a training all day at work so I couldn’t go to the gym during my lunch break, I had an eye exam in Boston after work and the traffic getting home was ridiculous. All of which could be very valid excuses for me to have skipped the workout. But the thing was, I didn’t WANT to skip the workout. While I was driving home, I had an internal conversation with myself trying to figure out what I should do. I was looking for ways to talk myself out of the workout since I rarely ever do that, but all the signs pointed to me doing the workout:

  • I wasn’t tired
  • I wasn’t sore
  • It wasn’t too late
  • I could do it at-home
  • I had eaten lots of carbs that day so I felt like I had loads of energy to burn
  • I genuinely WANTED to workout

So, what did I do? I worked out! But to save time, I decided to just workout at home rather than go to the gym and fighting the 6:30pm crowds where I knew I would get annoyed and frusterated and end up wasting more time just walking around trying to find a spot to workout and equipment to use that wouldn’t be in the midst of all the chaos.

The upside of being stuck in traffic was that not only did I have time to go through the mental checklist for deciding whether or not to workout, but I also had time to plan the workout in my head! I don’t know what made me think of doing a workout like this, but it ended up being a really good one- and, with 10 exercises in the mix, it helped keep things interesting and helped keep me from totally dreading all the reps!
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Wednesday Workout: Quickie 20 minute body weight AMRAP

Hi! I’m popping in this morning to share a quickie workout I did while I was in Maine a few weekends ago. When I got up, I got changed right into my workout clothes but just wasn’t sure I was really feeling a workout. This rarely happens to me, so I decided to just go with it and if I decided to workout later, great. If not, great. I ended up offering to vacuum and mop for my parents, which, in a 3,000 sq. foot house is quite a workout in and of itself! I loveeee those types of active chores so even though I was helping my parents, I was really helping myself get more movement in 😉

However, after I finished cleaning I found myself feeling more motivated to get a little workout in. The sun was shining and I had the privilege of working out outside in private, so I came up with a quickie 20 minute body weight AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) workout that left me sweaty, newly tanned and sore the next day. Win, win, win in my book!

20 minute AMRAP body weight workout
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Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute Count Down Body Weight Workout

Since I know December is a busy month for most people, I’ve decided to keep my Wednesday workouts for you on the shorter side. But, don’t be fooled- just because they’re short doesn’t mean they are not effective and it certainly doesn’t mean they won’t be challenging 😉

I did this one last week as part of my Happy, Healthy, Fit Challenge, since the challenge required a body weight workout. I love body weight workouts for many reasons:

  • they can be done anywhere
  • you don’t need equipment
  • they’re effective
  • you can make standard moves more difficult by changing things up
  • you can choose the format you want to use

…the list goes on and on.

For this particular workout, I changed it up and did a format that I don’t generally do: count down. I often get bored with workouts that repeat the same handful of moves throughout, but lately I’ve actually been enjoying those, so that’s where the idea for this one came. I picked some good moves that worked all the key areas: upper body, lower body, cardio and core. You’ll start with 10 reps of each exercise, then do 9, then 8 and so on. When you get down to 1 rep, do 10 instead of 1… that was the killer round!

20 minute count down workout

A member was early for my class so I asked if he wanted to join… we were both dripping by the end of it! And the best part was that the whole thing took less than 20 minutes. Have fun!

Questions for you: Do you like count down workouts? Do you like body weight workouts?