30-Minute Body-Weight Tabata Workout

30-Minute Body-Weight Tabata Workout

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend (blogging is so weird—it’s like writing an email to no one in particular). I just got back from a couple days on Nantucket, which was a wonderful change of pace from the Boston weekend scene.

Body-weight workouts are the best because you can pretty much do them anywhere. Your living room, hotel rooms, the beach, your backyard, a gym…they go where you go. I usually put together these no-equipment-needed workouts when I’m visiting my parents on the Vineyard or in Maine. It’d be a huge pain to lug kettle bells and other equipment with me, so I just use the weight I already carry around with me every day.

This workout is a slight variation of a traditional tabata, in that I did 10 rounds for each exercise instead of the typical 8. Deal. With. It. And before I get into the specifics, let me just put it out there that I’m fully aware my pike jump skills are unimpressive at best. Laugh away at the picture.

30-Minute Body Weight Tabata Workout

For each of the following exercises, you’ll set your Gymboss Interval Timer for 10 rounds of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. Once you’ve completed the 5 minutes of one exercise, take a quick drink of water and move on to the next.

• Pike Jump into Squat Jump: Place hands on ground so you’re in a peaked pike position and jump your legs into the air. Don’t worry if you can’t get very far off the ground at first (I’m right there with you, dude!). When your feet land back on the ground, push up back into a squat position, and then jump in the air, arms overhead. Repeat.
• Side Plank Lift with Knee Tuck (alternate sides each interval): Start in a side plank position on your right hand and lower your hips towards the ground and then lift back up into side plank position. Crunch your left knee in to meet your left elbow. Repeat. During the next 20-second work interval, you’ll do the same thing on your left hand. Continue to alternate sides throughout the 5 minutes.
• Knee Tuck, Roll, Back Row: Start laying on your back and do a full body crunch, lifting your torso and crunching in your knees so that you can hug them. Extend back out, lowering onto back. Roll to your right so that you’re on your stomach and do a back row, lifting your legs and chest off the ground while pulling your elbows back in a row. Extend back out and roll to the right again so that you’re on your back. Repeat sequence, only rolling to the left this time.
• Side Lunge Knee-Up Jumps (alternate legs each interval): Squat down on your right leg, extending your left leg out to the left in a side lunge. Bring leg back in, jumping up on your right foot and bringing that left knee up to your chest. Land back on right leg and repeat. During the next 20-second interval, you’ll do the same thing on your left leg.
• Up-Down Planks: Essentially, you’re starting in an elbow plank position and, one arm at a time, going up into a regular plank position, then back down into an elbow plank…and so on. Just remember to alternate the arm you’re leading with.
• Skiers / High Knees (alternate between the two exercises each interval): For skiers, you do a two-foot lateral jump, side to side, like you’re skiing down a mountain (think moguls section). For high knees, it’s like running in place only pick those knees up to hit your hands. You’ll do skiers the first 20 seconds, high knees the second 20-second interval, and so on and so forth.

What are some of your favorite body weight exercises?

Original article and pictures take pumpsandiron.com site