{FITNESS FRIDAY} build your own workout 101

Alright peeps - welcome back to Fitness Friday (said in my best Bob Barker impersonation)! 

This week I want to focus on building your own workout.  Often times if I'm strapped for time and don't have an hour to spare for the gym, I will make up a quick HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout and just get a good heart gargling 25 minutes in!   

You don't have to know a TON of things, trust me.  Just a few basic movements and you can incorporate hand weights or a kettle bell if you want but it's not necessary.  

1.) Try to get in two muscle groups.   Push Ups an Sit Ups are two muscle groups (arms and abs) or you can do squats.   For this one let's begin with push ups. 

You can do these regulation or modified (on your knees).  If you cannot do the whole set regulation I suggest trying a few before dropping into modified.  Modified works a slightly different part of the arm.  Squats are next; these are fairly easy to do.  Just remember you don't want to go much past 90 degrees on your leg bend and push your butt behind you rocking back on your heels when you squat down. 

So our workout for today starts with PUSH UPS and SQUATS

2.)  Add in Cardio (this helps make it HIGH INTENSITY) There are a multitude of simple cardio things you can insert here.  For example, high knee runs, jumping jacks, jump rope...

Let's go with high knees and we should do it between the strength so your workout now looks like this

PUSH UPS

HIGH KNEES 

SQUATS

3.) Repeat steps one and two!  Add in a few more movements scattered about.  Maybe you add the Sit ups now. 

PUSH UPS

HIGH KNEES

SQUATS

SIT UPS

...and then since you're already on the ground flip over for plank jacks 

PUSH UPS 

HIGH KNEES

SQUATS

SIT UPS

PLANK JACKS

... a plank hold would go well here since you're already on all fours

PUSH UPS

HIGH KNEES

SQUATS

SIT UPS

PLANK JACKS

PLANK HOLD

4.) Determine timing.  What I mean is you need to know how long you'll perform each movement and how many repetitions.  So, you have six moves to complete if you did each one for 30 seconds that's 3 minutes.  If that were the case I'd want to repeat that 5-6 times.  Or, you could do each movement for 1 minute each resulting in 6 minutes and you can repeat 2-3 times to get your 15-20 minutes in.  

The glory if it is, it's completely UP TO YOU! 

If you have any trouble coming up with ideas or don't know how to do a movement check out my WORKOUT HOW TO page!