2,4,6,8,10 Workout
One of my favorite ways to switch up a usual weights routine is to play with reps; often pyramid-style workouts. It makes the workout fly by, and something about getting to the last round feels so triumphant. Here’s something fun I recently tried.
“Fun.”
As Tina says:
“It doesn’t have to be ‘fun’ to be fun” 😉
The moves:
-squat jumps: get into a squat position (booty LOW and back), and touch the floor. Keep your abs engaged and chest lifted. Powering through your heels, spring up, reaching your arms towards the ceiling. Land with a soft knee. Repeat.
-windmill lunges: step forward into a lunge position, with your chest lifted, core tight, and sink straight down into a lunge. Watch your front knee to make sure it doesn’t extend past your toes, and focus on sinking down instead of forward. While you’re in your lunge, rotate through your torso to “chop” your opposite hand to the inside of your front foot. Reach up towards the ceiling with the same hand as the lunging leg. Step your foot back together, to a starting position before repeating on the other side.
-pushups: walk your hands out from your feet, so you come into a plank position. Make sure to squeeze EVERYTHING and keep your hips in line with your body; you’re a straight line from your head to your ankles. Feel free to drop to your knees if you need to, but make sure you don’t raise your hips up. Sink into a pushup, squeezing your chest and exhaling to rise up.
-leg lift and cross tap: in your plank position, lift one leg of the floor (squeeze your glute to lift your leg). Cross it over the stabilizing leg, tapping the floor if you can. Bring it back up behind you, lower down and repeat.
-frog crunch: keep your elbows wide (in line with your ears) and come into a crunch, bending your knees towards your body. (Like a frog!) As you inhale, lower your shoulders down and extend your legs straight in front of you, into a hover. Exhale to repeat.
How it works:
-You’ll go through the circuit, completing 2 reps (on each side, if applicable) for each move
-Go through again doing 4 reps
-Then 6 reps
-8 reps
-and finally, 10 reps!
It looks nice on screen, but I promise it’s a killer; the perfect exclamation point to a strength circuit or cardio workout. Do you play with reps? What’s one of your favorite strategies? Remember, anything we can do to keep the body from kicking into cruise control is a good thing. One of my favorite methods: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2… 10!
Enjoy <3
xoxo
Gina
PS. I wanted to show you the back of my new top! I’m kind of in love with it.
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I love your top! I often see people in yoga wearing something similar, and I always love them! Where did you buy it from?
And that workout sounds like quite the intense workout. I laughed at your favourite of the “10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2…10” as I’ve been in classes before that the instructor does that- you think you’re almost done and then so much more! I always appreciate it in the end though.
Thanks for the workout
LOVE the top – where did you get it?
at work- they sell lululemon. http://shop.lululemon.com/products/clothes-accessories/yoga/Flow-And-Go-Tank-II?cc=7208&skuId=3491270&catId=yoga
This will give me a great workout tomorrow. I did running intervals this morning and I wanted to do a steady state cardio workout with a nice strength/circuit of some kind. This is perfect!
Cute top! What kind of sports bra do you wear with that? I always feel locked down with the typical racerback to match the back of my sports bras.
hope you enjoy it!!
i usually don’t wear one since it’s built-in
You look gorgeous in that top! Well not only in that top of course, but yeah….you know what I mean, right? 🙂
My trainer gave me a weightlifting workout ‘Every minute on the minute’. 3 exercises (press, deadlift, push up) starting with 15 reps per minute absolving all 3 exercises (1 minute PER exercise), then 14 reps per minute, 13 reps etc. until 6 reps. Killer. But I love it!
thank you, friend
i love EMOM workouts too!
I love playing with rep styles, it helps beat the usual gym boredom. One of my favorite ways to change up my routine is to do a drop set. Or I like to do one warm up set of light weights, 2 heavy sets with 5-8 rep range, then end with 2 sets of moderate weight 10-12 reps. Love the back of that shirt!
Lady, your back/shoulders look AMAZING!
Yesterday in bootcamp, we started with 10 reverse lunges followed by 1 burpee, then 9 reverse lunges followed by 2 burpees, and so on down to 1 reverse lunge followed by 10 burpees…it gets harder as you go because each time you get less of a “break” from the burpees (it doesn’t take long to do 4 or 5 lunges!) Oh, and after we were done with that we “started” our workout 😉 But I really do like the ladder type workouts; you’re right, it makes it go much faster!
I agree, your back and shoulders look killer!! I can never seem to get mine defined. Do you have any secrets?
wow, thank you so much!! i’ve just been strength training more consistently lately
i will third the beautiful back and shoulders comments! they immediately caught my eyes in your little thumbnail of the windmill exercise. i was hoping you would post a posterior pic because i couldn’t help but admire.
you girls are sweet angels.
thank you!!! and that sounds AMAZING
Sounds like a sweaty workout! I don’t switch up my strength workouts nearly enough! And great colour and design of your shirt.
Your workout style is so fun and light even when it involves kinda hardcore exercises! I swear you need to start doing these classes live on Ustream, it would be a hit! x
that would be so much fun!
I agree!
look at those back and shoulder muscles-you look great!
I am in love with that top…like all the other comments-where did you get it? 🙂
I recognize that top- I saw it at Lululemon
I cannot wait to try this!! Also, do you have any specific posts about post-partum workouts? Just had my third, and was wondering if you had any suggestions. Also, just like everyone else, would like to know where your top is from 🙂 Thanks!
You have killer arms/back!! you are looking great…in the most non creepy way possible! And please do tell where you got that top!!
thank you!!! it’s lulu: http://shop.lululemon.com/products/clothes-accessories/yoga/Flow-And-Go-Tank-II?cc=7208&skuId=3491270&catId=yoga
great workout – just gave it a try! the leg lift and cross taps are deceiving, my arms and glutes were on fire!
ps love the graphic! super cute idea 🙂
I think its this one:
http://shop.lululemon.com/products/clothes-accessories/yoga/Flow-And-Go-Tank-II?cc=7208&skuId=3491270&catId=yoga
thank you for posting the link! 🙂
I love doing countdown (or count UP) workouts, whether 2/4/6/8/10 or 10, 9, 8, 7, etc. I also like to do DOUBLE ladders, where you do 2 reps of a strength move (example step-up with bicep curl) and 10 reps of a plyo move (example burpee). Then 4 of the strength, 8 of the plyo, etc. Another couple of favorites include playing with tempo of reps and doing drop sets where you do 8-10 reps with a heavy weight and then drop down and continue the reps with a lighter weight until fatigue. All are awesome and switching things up keeps my workouts interesting (and my classes coming back for more!)
love drop sets, too! it’s funny how the lighter weight feels just as heavy as the heavy weight
That workout looks really un-fun but also fun. I’ll definitely try it, try to cop out around 6, and force myself to finish so thank you!
Also that top is great.
Just did 3 rounds of tabata and then finished ‘er off with this workout – woooeee! I’m dripping. thank you!!
awesome!! great job!
I did this workout this morning followed by treadmill hot mess HIIT, feeling great!
whoo hoo!!!
Do the frog crunches help with lower abs. I’ve lost 60 pounds recently on mostly diet alone, and I really need to start toning up my tummy, so that I can prevent some of the loose skin.
I find my biggest problem area has always been my “pooch”, that area right below my belly button.
it will definitely work your rectus abdominis and almost all of your abdominal muscles. i recommend lots of planks! clean eating and HIIT training helps too
xo
That top = LOVE! Lulu gets my wallet in trouble sooo much 😉
I love pyramid workouts to mix it up. I also used to do this thing in karate where you grab a deck of cards and pick one exercise for each suit: clubs = push ups, spades = jumping jacks, and so on. Then you pull a card and have to do as many reps as on the card. It’s fun with the kids, but you never want to be the one to pull the Ace of Burpees (ace = 11)!
This definitely looks like “fun”! I love playing with reps- it makes the workout go by so quickly! I LOVE your top- super cute!
Love this! I love to play with my reps (I like all things numbers!).
I can’t wait to try the plank leg-lift with cross tap!!
Looks awesome! I will have to keep in mind to play with reps more
The ones that sound so easy usually kick the most butt! I’ll be doing this one in the am. 🙂
let me know how it goes! 🙂
Really cute top! Ending with 10 is my favourite workout too (though I definitely had to learn to love it) 🙂
Loove this, going to try it out later!
Hi Gina! Love the workout! Just wondering which day in the March workout plan I should substitute in this one (leg day, arm day, circuit day). Thanks 🙂
Great workout! I did it this morning after my run while my baby laughed at me.
I’m in love with that top and this hardcore workout. Thanks!
Love this workout! I usually do reps of 5-6 moves from 10, 9, 8 … etc. to 1. I think mentally I just like doing less reps the next round, lol.
I’ve also done a couple of workouts using a deck of cards – each suit stands for an exercise and then whatever card you flip over is the number of reps you do (I usually pick about 12 rounds)… That’s been fun too.
And great top! 🙂
Never thought to do reps this way! LOVE it! Thanks for sharing 🙂
That really does look fun…and so does your top! Love the color!
what a fun way to keep working out interesting – loving your top btw – you’ve got AMAZING arms! x
thank you!! 🙂
love that top! so cute 🙂
Well, looks like I’m about to give this a go! Sounds painful, but results sound fanstastic 😉 Love the top!
I did this today it was great! Since I only was doing this workout I finished and the counted back down! It took me about 25 minutes and I felt like I got a good workout in. I am visiting my nana’s I I was able to bust it out in her living room to squeeze in a 30 minute workout on the go!
amazing!
I always feel so stumped as to what to do when I feel its time to “mix up” my strength routine – this sounds like a KILLER way to do it! I especially like the idea of re-loading with a final ten reps after you get all the way to the bottom – talk about a killer feeling of accomplishment when you finish 🙂 Also, I just wanted to say that the color of that top looks amazing with your coloring!
Did this tonight after some cardio and you’re right – I thought it’d be nice and easy but by the time I got to 8 and 10 I was feeling it! Love that I can easily do this in my home too. Thanks for the great workout!
whoo hoo! thank you for letting me know! 🙂
Just did this sequence- woo! I love having patterns to follow in a workout. It keeps me committed and gives my wandering mind something to pay attention to!
Thanks for all your great workouts, Gina!
whoo hoo!! so happy you enjoyed it