I might be a personal trainer, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to the occasional bout of exercise-itis. Sadly, I know too much to be able to convince myself that skipping a workout entirely is a good idea, but I do believe in tweaking your workout to suit your mood/body/schedule when necessary. Sometimes this might mean switching Pump for yoga or your run for something lower impact, like swimming or cycling. And at other times it’s as simple as committing to a shorter workout rather than ditching training altogether.
One day last week I had a 40-ish minute high intensity circuit planned. I was going to head to the gym in my lunch break, but time got away from me. As the day went on I started talking myself out of training – I’d go tomorrow, I’ve trained well lately, all the usual excuses you may have read about in this post here. But then I reminded myself – just because I couldn’t do THE circuit I’d planned, didn’t mean I couldn’t do ANY circuit. And since we all know that something is better than nothing when it comes to exercise, the 15-minute workout was born! It’s this simple:
15-minute pyramid workout
Five reps each of:
Kettlebell swings | push ups | lunge jumps | pull ups | sit ups
50 high knees
10 reps each of:
Kettlebell swings | push ups | lunge jumps | pull ups | sit ups
50 high knees
15 reps each of:
Kettlebell swings | push ups | lunge jumps | pull ups | sit ups
50 high knees
10 reps each of:
Kettlebell swings | push ups | lunge jumps | pull ups | sit ups
50 high knees
Five reps each of:
Kettlebell swings | push ups | lunge jumps | pull ups | sit ups
50 high knees
You can pretty much choose any exercises you like to include in this workout, but try to avoid isolation exercises like tricep dips or bicep curls. The bigger the movement, the better! If you don’t have kettlebells you can use a regular dumbbell for the swing, or switch the swing for a step up. And while pull ups are great if you have one of these fabulous contraptions (it’s called an Equalizer – more on it later) or a fence handy, if that’s not a possibility then a resistance band row would also do the trick.
Last thing to keep in mind – this cheeky little 15-minute number isn’t designed to take the place of your regular workouts, but it’s a nice little fallback option if you’re really running out of time.
Enjoy it, grab a stopwatch and let me know how long it takes you!
A trainer once told me not to swing a kettlebell above my head when doing a swing, but i can see in your pictures that you have – does it matter?
ps – love you blog!
Thanks, I’m glad you are enjoying it!! Re: the swing. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t go above your head, providing your form is good enough to protect your lower back and you have no shoulder injuries, but realistically, most of the time I recommend shoulder height to my clients too. I find that by finishing at shoulder height the movement can be more controlled (and it also cuts down on rest time at the top of the movement which you can get when the bell is swung above your head).
To be honest, part of the reason the bell is so high in that pic is that it was IMPOSSIBLE to get a photo at shoulder height. So keep doing it the way you’ve been doing it!