Today I decided to switch things up a bit, just to keep it interesting. (Though I have to admit that I haven't gotten too bored with the 30 Day Shred workouts - I think it helps that there's 3 of them and that I alternate them all the time).
My friend Jody facebooked about this new website she found called
BodyRockTV and a
Tabata style workout on there that she tried that was really good. It's called the
Best 20 Minute Cardio Workout - since I'm all about short intense workouts this looked like a good one - so, I decided to try it. I'm not so sure I agree with the title of the workout though - it's actually all strength conditioning moves - but you do get an excellent cardio workout at the same time, so I guess it still works.
The idea of Tabata is to do 4 minute rounds of 20 seconds of intense exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. In this workout you do a different 4 minute round five times to get 20 minutes of exercise.
The
1st round is the hardest IMO - it's a lunge variation where you keep one leg tucked up by your chest and then lunge back with the other leg over and over as fast as you can for 20 seconds, then rest 10 seconds, then go for 20 seconds, etc. You do this 4 times (2 min) on one leg and then 4 times (2 min) on the other leg.
The
2nd round is baby pushups for 8 rounds (4 mins). You can try full pushups if you like, but if you can keep that up the whole time - well, my hat's off to you!
The
3rd round is slide lunges with a lateral raise - alternating legs after 4 rounds. Since I'm working on carpet and don't have sliders I just did a backwards lunge.
The
4th round is bike crunches. She does them different than the traditional bike crunch move - I tried doing the traditional version on round 8 and found that to be even harder than the one she does. So, I'll probably do that next time.
The
5th and final round is side slide lunges with bicep curls. I didn't slide - I just kept in a stationary wide leg stance and sank down on one side for 4 rounds, then the other side for 4 rounds.
I have to say - this was very effective and a nice change. There's tons of these type of workouts online and you could really design your own simply using the same idea.
One note of warning - this woman uses very low cut tops for her workouts, so you will be getting an eyeful if you watch the videos.
Edited to add: Jody gave me a great tip for doing sliding lunges on carpet - use a large tupperware lid flipped upside down.
