That picture above was the aftermath of a particularly hot and schweaty session in the park last week. Don’t let the tiny, innocent looking weight fool you… That relic is a hand me down from Dan’s Grandad and it is deceptively heavy! Fling a couple of those around for half an hour or so and you will definitely feel a burn! I also kinda love that they’re not pink!

So, I’ve been umming and ahhing about what type of workouts to share with you guys each week… whether they should be full workouts, just one particular move meant to inspire you and freshen up your current routines, workouts geared towards one specific sport etc etc. We want to keep things varied here at  B R E A K T H E L O O P  making sure that there’s something for everyone and so because of that and also true to my ‘squirrel’ type attention span / nature I think I’m just going to go in with whatever I feel like at the time. I’m wild like that, you see. A fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal. Ha.

This week I’m sharing with you a snippet of the HIIT workout we did. You can work through it in different ways but to keep things simple here, I would suggest repeating the whole thing as many times as you can in 20 or 30 (or even 40) minutes, taking rest as you need it. You could even use it as a bench mark to gauge current fitness status and future improvements… Do it now and keep a little tally of how many rounds you complete, you can even make a little note about how you feel, what you struggled with, where you felt strong etc. Then aim to complete the workout again in two weeks time, and then again two weeks after that. It will really show you where you’re making improvements and the areas that still need a bit of work.

Spend a few minutes warming up, anything from jumping jacks to a few minutes jogging, if you have the room, if not you can always run on the spot (be sure to lift those knees nice and high).

THE WORKOUT

1. 20 Deep Jumping Jacks (Jumping down into a sumo squat position before springing back up, arms are as they usually would be when doing a jumping jack.)
2. 20 Jump Lunges (10 on each side.)
3. 10 Full Burpees (That’s chest alllll the way to the floor, not forgetting that all important jump when you come back up to standing, try to jump from the bent knee position so it’s all one fluid movement.)
4. 10 Push ups (Whatever style you like, as long as there’s no cheating! So that means chest as close as possible to the ground, always. You can definitely do these on your knees, if you’d prefer, just really think about getting your chest to the ground and keeping a nice neutral line from your knees to your shoulders, no sticking your bum up in the air!)
5. 20 Mountain Climbers (10 on each side. Really drive your knees towards your chin.)
6. 10 Bunny hops (Don’t rush through these, really crouch down to one side then explode up, kicking your feet up as high as possible and over to the other side. Keep your head down, if you try to look up it will only stop your feet from going as high. You should aim to be kicking your own arse!! 😉 This is great to build up strength in the shoulders, arms and core… helpful if you’re trying to nail that handstand, amongst other things.)

There you have it! I’m pretty confident that this will leave you a sweaty mess! Although it’s made up of only a few moves, they are pretty dynamic so will have your whole body working hard.

Good luck & enjoy! Let me know what you think!