Whimsical Wednesday: Quick and Simple Workouts

No.

(Notice how I didn’t title this, “Quick and Easy”? Even if you’re stuck at home, you can still get in a challenging work out). Here in Virginia, there are whisperings of a “tough” winter approaching. This means there might be a couple days where snow might encapsulate our houses and block our roads (how rude!) so I thought I’d prepare our readers ahead of time with a few workouts for home (no excuses).

I’m going to work off the assumption that the only available equipment are: your body, chairs and tables. If you have a pull up bar, bands, furniture sliders or other such fun toys, awesome! Utilize those in place of just your body weight. For those who are not so fortunate, body weight workouts are the name of the game!

There are a couple of ways to approach the following workouts.

1. Complete X number of rounds of the circuit as fast as possible.

2. Complete as many rounds as possible in X amount of time.

3. Turn any of the workouts into a ladder. (in which case the given reps won’t be needed as your rep scheme will change as you go through the ladder)

Workout 1:

- Up-downs (hands elevated if needed) x 5-8

- Squats x 8

- Push-ups (hands elevated if needed) x 5-8

- Step back lunge x 8/side

- Side plank x :30-:45/side

Repeat for 3-5 rounds, resting :30-:90 between rounds (depending on your conditioning level).

Workout 2:

- SL RDL  x 8-10/side (just don’t use weights or use make-shift weights with soup cans in plastic bags or grab small children… maybe not.)

- Plank Up-downs (sorry, this was the only decent video I could find) x 5-8/side

- Goblet squat to stepback lunge x 5/side (again, body weight or improvised weights will work)

- Push up eccentrics x 3-5 with a 6 second descent (hands elevated if needed)

Repeat 3-5 rounds, resting :30-:90 between rounds.

Workout 3:

- Rear-foot elevated split squats (or normal split squats without the back foot elevated) x 8-10/side

- Plank with alternating leg lifts x 8-10/side

- Crawl of your choice around your living room x 2-3 trips around

Isn’t Steve a great crawler?

- Jump squats (if knees permit) x 10 or Jumping jacks x 20

Repeat…. as the other workouts above.

Of course, each workout is customizable to what your fitness goals/level may be. These are just basic templates to spark some ideas of what to do when you can’t leave your house. You can still train hard!

Just in case you get picked for the Hunger Games... you're ready!