Tag: tabata

Wednesday Workout: Holiday Bodyweight Blast #4 {full body Tabata}

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Hi everyone! Can you believe that Christmas is less than a week away?! Although I was really on top of gifts and decorating this year, I still feel like the month is going by WAY TOO QUICKLY! And, to top it off, RM’s birthday is on Saturday so it’s a full weekend of celebration activities. I’m not complaining, but its just crazy to think about how quickly it’s all approaching!

I’ve talked to a bunch of people in my office lately who have admitted that during busy times like these, workouts are the first thing to go in order to free up more time for other things. Sound familiar? I get it – it can be hard to fit it all in.

But, that’s where the workouts included in this series come in – they are all quickie bodyweight workouts that can be done anywhere! Today’s workout is 20 minutes, but if you only have 12 or 16 minutes, just do fewer tabata rounds. No biggie. I’m always a big proponent for “something is always better than nothing”, and I feel as though it’s especially critical to get this message out at this time of year to help people realize this. Remember – it can be as easy as one fewer social media scrolling sessions (because, seriously, I think we all spend more time doing that than we would like to admit), it’s less than a 30 minute TV episode or it can be a conversation on the phone. Half of the time we fret about not having time to workout, we spend more time making excuses for why we don’t have time to workout than the time it would take to actually DO the workout 😉

That said, today’s workout is the 4th and final workout in the “Holiday Bodyweight Blast” series. It’s Tabata, which is one of my favorite “best bang for your buck” workouts. It kicks my butt every single time!

Holiday Bodyweight Blast #4- tabata

I think everything should be pretty straight forward, but let me know if you have questions. I plan on doing this again in the next few days  because it gave me a good butt kicking in a short amount of time!

Hope you have a great Wednesday!!

 

Questions for you: What’s the first thing to go when you get busy? Are you feeling prepared for Christmas?

Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute AMRAP with weights

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Hi there! Happy hump day 🙂 Are you having a good week so far? I’m so excited to write these posts for you because even though I have no idea if you’re enjoying them, benefiting from them or even reading them, I like adding the workouts I’ve done and enjoyed to my online “catalog”, aka, my blog 😉

I mentioned in another post recently how I’ve been enjoying tabata style workouts, especially when I’m tight on time because I know that they always kick my butt. The other day when I was at the gym during my lunch break I knew I wanted/needed just that: a short, butt-kicking workout. I’ve also been trying to bring back weight training on a more consistent basis so I made sure to pick appropriate exercises.

20-minute-amrap-with-weights

By all means, nothing fancy, but it got the job done- in just 20 minutes (ok, like 25-28 with warm up & cool down 😉 ).

I’d love to know if you try this!

Questions for you; Do you enjoy these posts or do you skip the blog on my Wednesday Workout post days?

Wednesday Workout: Italy Workout Series {Part 3: 5 Round Bodyweight Tabata}

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Good morning! It’s hard to believe there was a period of time where I had no workouts to share with you because these days I feel like I have quite a backlog of saved workouts to share with you. Today’s workout is part 3 of my Italy Workout Series, which includes- you guessed it- another 20 minute bodyweight workout. This time I used the Tabata format, which is 20 seconds “on” (this is when you do the exercise move) and 10 seconds “off” (this is when you rest), repeating 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. In a traditional tabata workout you would do the same exercise for all 8 rounds, but I tend to change it up a bit and do 2 or 4 difference exercises for each round, generally complimenting each other. Today’s workout used 2 different exercises per tabata so you’ll do each four times.

I don’t know about you guys, but for me, in a tabata workout, rounds 1-3 or 4 leave me feeling like “I got this, no problem!”, rounds 5 & 6 tend to be “Alright, this is feeling definitely more challenging… and that 10s seems to be going by awfully quickly” and then by rounds 7 & 8 I’m struggling to keep up with the number of reps I could complete in the earlier rounds and barely feel slightly recovered by the end of the 10s rest period…. which is probably why tabatas are such an effective type of training format to throw into the mix!

 

5-round-bodyweight-tabata

Quick note: for the “walk out-> pushup-> walk in-> squat, you’ll walk your hands out into a high plank position, do a pushup, then walk them back in and then you’ll do a squat. If you want to intensity this move, you can do a 1 legged walk out and switch sides after each squat.

I set round 1 up to also be the warm up, so you can choose whatever moves you like to do to warm up for this round. Otherwise the moves are a bit lower intensity than I normally do, but again I was on vacation, which means my workouts are less intense by nature, and I was working out on our terrace and didn’t want to disturb neighbors. Regardless, it was a great way to get in a little sweat sesh and perk me up for the day ahead.

In case you missed the other two workouts in this series, here they are:

Italy Workout Series Part 1: Countdown Bodyweight
Italy Workout Series Part 2: 20 Min. Bodyweight AMRAP

Questions for you: What’s the hardest workout format for you? What’s your favorite workout format?

Wednesday Workout: Treadmill & 2 Upper Body Circuits

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Lucky for you guys, I’ve gotten back into creating and doing my own workouts, which means I have things to share with you! I did this one at the Westin Annapolis hotel we stayed at while in Annapolis over the weekend. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I got to the gym, but quickly realized whatever it was going to be had to be quick because it was HOT in there! I started with the 1 mile treadmill run and then decided to throw in a quickie tabata round since I was bored out of my mind staring at the wall as I ran, but still wanted to get my heart rate up a bit.

To finish up the workout, I threw together 2 quickie circuits, upper body focused since my legs were still sore from a bodyweight workout I had done earlier that week (definitely need to share that one with you!).

All in all, I was in and out of the gym in just 30 minutes, which was perfect for a “travel/hotel” workout.

Treadmill & Upper Body Circuits

Treadmill Notes: I did my 1 mile as follows:

  • 7.0 for mins 0-1,
  • 7.2 for mins 1-2
  • 7.4 for mins 2-4
  • 7.6 for mins 4-6
  • 7.8 for mins 6-8
  • 2 minute walk break and then the following speeds for the tabata:
  • Round 1 was at 9mph
  • Round 2 was at 9.2mph
  • Round 3 was 9.4mph
  • Round 4 was 9.6mph
  • Round 5 was 9.8mph
  • Round 6 was 10mph
  • Round 7 was 10.2mph
  • Round 8 was 10.4mph

At first the tabata speed felt too easy but by the end I was huffing and puffing!!

Let me know if you give this a try- it’s a great quickie workout 🙂

Questions for you: Do you prefer short, sprinting bursts or just a continual steady state pace?

Wednesday Workout: Jump Rope Tabata & Full Body Circuits

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As part of the BoxFIIT Certification I’m doing, I have to film myself doing all sorts of exercises to validate that I can, in fact, do them (and teach them). Most of the exercises- a combination of boxing moves and strength exercises- pose me little to no trouble because I do them all the time. Goblet squats? Easy. Lunges? Piece of cake. Jabs? Got it. However, over the weekend I had to film myself jumping rope, which is a little more outside of my comfort zone. I don’t feel good at jumping rope and get frustrated because I end up whipping myself with the rope so much.

After filming myself, though, I realized my issue: I don’t practice this enough so it’s no wonder why I struggle with it. We tend to skip things we aren’t good at, right? Which is exactly what I do when it comes to jump roping. But! I’m changing that. I vowed to practice jump roping more frequently to help me get more comfortable with the action of jumping over the rope. Which is precisely where this workout came from! And, I have to say that later in the day RM commented on how I looked like a good jump roper- I smiled and said “thanks! It’s something I’m working on” 😉

Jump Rope Tabata & Full Body Circuits

You’ll want to perform the reps on each leg or arm. If you have any questions on the moves, let me know. A great resource for the Pallof Press and the Waiter/Overhead Carry is my girl Stephanie’s post, which you can check out here: Train Your Core.

I hope you check this out and enjoy it. I loved it, but it could’ve been because I was outside on my patio in the beautiful, warm sunshine-y weather AND I was rocking out to Spotify, which I just recently downloaded. So far, I’m obsessed 🙂

Questions for you: What exercises do you avoid because they’re hard or you don’t feel good at them?