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Interval Training – 20/20/20 Workout
Tabata training is a very popular type of interval training these days, but 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off isn’t the only type of interval training you should be doing.
While a work to rest ratio of 2 to 1 is great, you could make that 2 to 1 interval, 40 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest.
You can also do a 1 to 1 interval of 30 seconds of work, to 30 seconds of rest.
Or a 1 to 2 interval of 20 seconds of work to 40 seconds of rest.
Really the options are endless – it all really depends on what energy system you want to work and what you want to get out of your interval training.
For instance, endurance will require longer work intervals while power will require shorter work intervals with longer intervals of rest.
Whatever you want to accomplish, there is an interval for that.
Below is one of our favorite interval workouts – The 20/20/20 Metabolic Workout!
20/20/20 Metabolic Workout
WARM UP:
Roll out and stretch from head to toe.
WORKOUT:
Complete 5 rounds of each circuit. Rest 1-2 minutes between circuits.
CIRCUIT #1:
20 seconds Burpee Sit Thrus
20 seconds Heavy Bag Carry
20 seconds Rest
CIRCUIT #2:
20 seconds Slam Bag Shouldering
20 seconds Plank Wipers (or a simple plank hold variation like the slam bag one shown above)
20 seconds Rest
CIRCUIT #3:
20 seconds Tsunamis
20 seconds Lateral Shuffle
20 seconds Rest
CIRCUIT #4:
20 seconds Dot Drill
20 seconds Snow Angels
20 seconds Rest
CIRCUIT #5:
20 seconds Rower
20 seconds Dip Hold with Leg Raises
20 seconds Rest
COOL DOWN:
Walk around and let your heart rate come down. Roll out and stretch from head to toe.
Metabolic Workouts – Some are Sprints, Others are more like a Jog
Metabolic workouts are the only sort of cardio I enjoy (ok…I do like sprints as well). I hate long distance running or any steady-state cardio for that matter.
Maybe I love them because metabolic workouts come in all shapes and sizes so you can work all the energy systems. Maybe I just love them because they contain a ton of variety and keep me interested…Who knows…
But they are a version of cardio that I love.
And I don’t just love them because I feel utterly destroyed after each one. Because, in fact, I don’t.
Not every metabolic workout should smash you.
While workouts like the 20/20/20 are great and even essential to your workout routine, so are metabolic workouts where you never redline, where you never feel completely smashed.
It is like the difference between sprints and a long jog. After sprints you may feel exhausted because each one is an all out effort and you need to rest in between. Whereas with the jog, you should feel like you can keep going at the same pace the entire time because you never give an all out effort.
Some metabolic workouts need to be like that. Some metabolic workouts should have you working at 70% of your max output instead of going all out.
Below is a great aerobic metabolic workout. Make sure during it that you never redline. You want to keep moving at about 70% of your maximal output for the entire time.
10 Minute Metabolic Circuits
WARM UP
Stretch and Roll Out:
Calves
Quads
Hamstrings
Groin
Hips/Glutes
Chest/Shoulders
Back/Lats/Traps
WORKOUT
Set a timer for 10 minutes. Work at 70% and keep moving the entire 10 minutes. Rest a couple of minutes between circuits. This is a great workout to do with a friend or two.
CIRCUIT #1:
Agility Ladder (Mix up the drills and go forward, backward and sideways. Keep going through then walking back and repeating.)
CIRCUIT #2:
Med Ball Throws (Rotational throws, side throws, overhead passes, chest passes, throws for height, mix them up and throw against a wall, slam it into the ground, throw it for height or work with a partner. Keep moving, but never redline.)
CIRCUIT #3:
Crawling and/or Locomotion (Jog, back pedal, high knees, skips, butt kickers, side shuffle, bear crawl, crab crawl, gorilla crawl, keep moving and mix up the drills. Move forward, backward and sideways.)
COOL DOWN
Stretch and Roll Out:
Calves
Quads
Hamstrings
Groin
Hips/Glutes
Chest/Shoulders
Back/Lats/Traps
For more metabolic workouts, check out the Workout Library.
What are some of your favorite cardio workouts?
Home Cardio Workout
I’ve said before I hate cardio…But that really isn’t completely true.
I just hate long, slow cardio. SO BORING.
And it also kind of makes me mad that everyone thinks that they either need to go for a jog or hop on a piece of cardio equipment to get their cardio in.
Because you don’t.
You can easily do a super tough and fat burning cardio workout at home with very little space!
For example you can do the towel taz….
The other day I actually did one a great at home cardio workout although I didn’t do the towel taz.
I didn’t feel like going in to the gym, but I wanted to workout. I also didn’t feel like doing a long workout since I had a lot to do.
AND on top of those things, I didn’t have a lot of space to work with and had to do it outside the kitchen since Ryan was holed up in the office doing work.
And this is what I did:
Home Cardio Workout
Stretch and roll out all tight spots (hips, calves, quads, upper back, lats were my targets)
CIRCUIT #1:
3-5 rounds:
20 seconds each exercise
20 seconds rest between rounds (beginners may need more rest take up to 1 minute between rounds)
Burpees
Sit Thrus
Super Crunch
super crunch
2-3 minutes rest between circuits
CIRCUIT #2:
3-5 rounds:
20 seconds each exercise
20 seconds rest between rounds
Skater Hops
Mt. Climbers (can use a towel or sliders if you have them)
Cherry Bombs
2-3 minutes rest between circuits
CIRCUIT #3:
3-5 rounds:
20 seconds each exercise
20 seconds rest between rounds
Split Squat Jumps
Plank Hip Dips
Circle Crawls
split squat jumps
2-3 minutes rest between circuits
Stretch and roll out anything that is tight when done.
Now this is cardio I like.
What’s your favorite home cardio workout?
Summer Sprint Workout
I’ve mentioned this numerous times before, but the only running I enjoy doing is sprinting.
And when the sun is out, I love getting outside to workout.
So in honor of this beautiful Thursday, here is a great sprint workout to do outside!
This workout is also one of the few that I do that includes crunch-like moves. They are almost like an active break between the sprints.
The key with this workout is to go all out when you are working and make sure your take time to recover. Start with two or even three times the rest and work your way down to equal rest to work. Doing this workout with a partner is a great idea because you can rest while they complete all the exercises and then you can work while they rest!
Below is a video demonstrating all of the crawling and crunch exercises for the sprint workout.
Summer Sprint Workout:
Complete 3-5 rounds of each circuit. Beginners may need 2-3 times the rest while more advanced exercisers should keep an equal work to rest ratio.
Sprint Circuit #1:
3-5 rounds of the following 3 exercises. Do not rest between the 3 exercises! Rest once all three are completed!
4 cone suicide, 1 round (farthest cone should be about 50ft away from start)
Forwards Crawl, Backwards Crawl (down to farthest cone and back)
Cherry Bombs, 10 reps
Rest and repeat. These rest intervals should be as close to equal work to rest as you can make them although beginners may need more rest to start.
Rest for 1-3 minutes after completing 3-5 rounds of the circuit above. Then move onto the second circuit.
Sprint Circuit #2:
3-5 rounds of the following 3 exercises. Do not rest between the 3 exercises! Rest once all three are completed!
4 cone suicide, 1 round (farthest cone should be about 50ft away from start)
Lateral Crawls (down to farthest cone and back)
Plank Hip Dips, 10 each side
Rest and repeat. These rest intervals should be as close to equal work to rest as you can make them although beginners may need more rest to start.
Rest for 1-3 minutes after completing 3-5 rounds of the circuit above. Then move onto the third and final circuit.
Sprint Circuit #3:
3-5 rounds of the following 3 exercises. Do not rest between the 3 exercises! Rest once all three are completed!
4 cone suicide, 1 round (farthest cone should be about 50ft away from start)
Circle Crawls, 3-5 circles each way (Beginners do 3, advanced do 5. Make sure to alternate directions each time or you will get very dizzy. Pretend your belly button is attached by a string to the ground and circle your hands and feet around that spot.)
Sit Thrus, 5-10 reps each side (5 for beginners, up to 10 per side for advanced)
DONE!
Enjoy!
Feeling Tired
I love feeling completed exhausted after my workouts. I love that feeling of just wanting to sit on the couch and not move for a couple of hours.
I especially love that feeling when it takes me less than 30 minutes to get it!
Like today, Ryan and I went down to the gym in our apartment building. This honestly is one of the most ridiculous gyms I’ve ever seen. Four treadmills, two recumbent bikes, a bench press machine, a leg extension machine and one functional trainer (aka a cable machine with a pull up bar). It also has medicine balls up to 10lbs and 3 kettlebells ranging from like 2lbs to 20lbs. Not exactly a personal trainers dream gym.
BUT that didn’t stop us from getting in a killer workout in the very small space that we had. We mostly wanted a cardio workout after doing the 300 yesterday.
So we did:
4 rounds as fast as possible of:
400m Run
20 Burpees (Chest touches the ground on each one)
20 Sit-ups
1 minute wall sit
Great workout that took less than 15 minutes. I got a nice sweat going and my legs started to burn during wall sits especially after the 50 deadlifts yesterday!
Yep..A great cardio session in less than 15 minutes. So why are you spending an hour on the treadmill?
Below is another great workout although it took a bit longer between the heavy lift and the circuit. Still under an hour though (I didn’t really pay attention to exactly how long).
Strength:
Back squat 5×5
Auxiliary Lift circuit: 5 rounds as fast as possible
500m Row
15ea 1 Leg Squats
30 Box Jumps
30 KB Swings
30 Jump Knee Tucks (Jump as high as you can and bring your knees to your chest as much as possible)
Also, an awesome “Show Me Yours” photo from Francine. A different way to show off her Man Biceps and Man Lats!
Nice back muscles!
Now go workout and have a great Sunday and a great Easter or Passover! 🙂
Cardio I Like? – Tabata Training
So usually when I talk about cardio, it is to rant against it. I HATE long, steady-state cardio.
I do however, really really like sprints. And tabata training falls within the sprint category.
Tabata training is essentially performing as many reps of an exercise as you can for 20 seconds. This can be running, jumping, squatting…anything. After 20 seconds of work, you get 10 seconds of rest. You repeat this process 8 times.
The whole set of 8 rounds is 4 minutes. But boy is it a deadly four minutes. I swear 20 seconds has never felt so long or 10 seconds so short!
In that 20 seconds you work as hard as you can – you give 100% effort. And in the 10 seconds that follow, you barely recover before your right back to work.
Yesterday, Candy and I did a squat jump and burpee mixed tabata. We alternated exercises each round and trust me…our legs and lungs burned. The first round of squat jumps, you feel the burn but you bust out about 1 per second. Then you go into burpees and your legs feel like jello. The 10 seconds of rest feels like nothing when you start jump squats again. Your legs burn after three and the 20 you did the first time seems like an impossible number to reach. But you push on, trying to complete as many reps as you can in that 20 second. And you keep pushing – through all 8 rounds.
After the 8 rounds, we did two minutes of jump rope and then repeated the four minutes of burpee-squat jump hell before two more minutes of jump rope.
12 minutes.
That’s all it took to make our legs and lungs feel like we’d done cardio for an hour…12 minutes. Of course the push up/pull up pyramid we completed before definitely didn’t make us feel any better…but even if we hadn’t…that 12 minutes would have been enough!
And the thing is, you don’t even need 12 minutes to get in plenty of cardio. You just need 4.
On Tuesday after a heavy leg workout, Candy and I did tabata sprints.
We jacked the speed up to 10.5 (which isn’t our fastest but give us a break it was after legs!). We jumped on and sprinted for 20 seconds. The first one wasn’t fun, but it felt doable. We jumped off to the sides and rested for 10 seconds. The second one was ok, but you could tell the last few were going to be a struggle.
After 8 rounds, I was wiped out. Four minutes of sprints…that was all it took to give me a great cardio workout.
4 minutes.
So why are you wasting 60 minutes on a treadmill when you can get great results just doing 4?
You save time by doing tabata workouts. You’ll burn more fat. And unlike long, steady-state cardio, you will not only improve your aerobic system, but also your anaerobic system.
I thought this was a great site for more information on Tabata training! Try it!! I guarantee you’ll get a great workout!
Man Bicep 