EMOM workout- only 15 minutes
Hey hey. How’s the day treating ya? Thank you SO MUCH for all of your amazing discussion comments yesterday, and for making this space the fun, inviting, interesting party that it is. I’ve been doing the usual teaching thing this week (had barre on Tuesday and Spin last night), and also took miss P to her upper GI testing. I’ll post an update on the Family page this afternoon (spoiler: it wasn’t a picnic, but we’re glad it’s over).
Today, I have a workout for you! This is a quick and dirty one, and was modeled after some of my favorite CrossFit workouts. When I first took a CrossFit class, I thought EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute) workouts were sneaky little beasts. Do you take your time, knowing that you’ll get a shorter rest in between sets? Or do you crush through it quickly, blasting your heart rate up, but knowing you’ll get more time before starting the next round? Tricky, tricky, CrossFit.
Here’s the idea of EMOM:
-Set a timer.
-When a minute begins, you’ll work through a short list of exercises. When the next minute starts, you’ll do it again. This means if you get through your exercises quickly, you’ll have some time to rest before your next round. If you move slowly, you’re working pretty much the entire time.
-Most EMOM workouts are in time blocks, so an example would be EMOM 5: 10 burpees. This means every minute for 5 minutes, you would do 10 burpees (= 50 burpees). So let’s say you finish your first set of 10 burpees in 40 seconds. You have 20 seconds to rest before starting your next set of 10 burpees.
Here is today’s workout:
EMOM 5:
Squat (touch the floor with dumbbells and keep your chest high) to overhead press x 10
Squat jumps x 10
Mountain climbers x 20 total
EMOM 5:
Deadlift x 10
Push-ups x 10
Burpees x 10
EMOM 5:
Walking lunges x 10
Jumping lunges x 20
Quick squats x 15
The exercises and form cues:
Squat (touch the floor with dumbbells and keep your chest high) to overhead press
Make sure to keep your chest lifted and core tight. Avoid letting the weights fall down, and lower them with control. Exhale to rise and press the weights overhead.
Squat jumps
Come into a squat before using your legs to jump (or tuck jump!). Be sure to land softly, with slightly bent knees, before springing back up again.
Mountain climbers
Start in a plank position. Bring one knee in towards your chest, and jump or walk it back to starting position before repeating on the opposite side.
Deadlift
Keep the bar close to your shins, and start with feet hip-width apart. Bend your knees, and hinge forward from your hips to place your hands on the bar in line with your shoulders. Contract your upper body (pull your shoulders back and keep your chest lifted) and your transverse abdominis (deep core muscles), as you exhale and squeeze your glutes to stand. During the entire movement, keep your spine long and straight.
For ideas on changing up your deadlift, check out this post.
Push-ups
On your knees, toes, or modified against a wall. Keep your hips down in line with your spine, and exhale, squeezing your chest, to rise.
Burpees
Modify by walking back to plank and walking back up. To make it even more fun, add a tuck jump at the top.
Walking lunges
For your lunge setup, make sure your feet are hip distance apart, and think about sinking down instead of forward as you lunge. Watch the front knee to make sure it doesn’t extend past your toes.
Jumping lunges
Make sure to land with a soft knee and sink into your lunge before springing up to switch sides. If the impact is too much, try quick and efficient lunges on one side before switching to the other side.
Quick squats
For your regular ol’ squat, make sure your feet are underneath your shoulders (hip width or slightly wider is good) and toes slightly turned out. Focus on sitting back, while keeping your chest lifted and a tight core. Inhale to lower, exhale to rise. Make sure that your knees go towards your toes, but not far past your toes. Sink your hips as low as your flexibility allows, whether it’s a small squat, or to hips just above knee level. You can squat lower than knee level if it works for you, but generally it’s not something that I recommend.
That’s it!
So this entire workout is 15 minutes. You warm up for 5-7 minutes, crush through each 5 minute block, and move on with your day.
Are you going to give it a try?! EMOM workouts: tricky beast or BFF?
Leave a comment and let me know how it goes!
xoxo
Gina
Some more of my favorite quick workouts are here and 10 workouts you can do in 10 minutes.
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These are all of the moves that I teach in my yoga with weights class…KILLER but so effective. I love fast, short workouts. They’re perfect for busy women!
yoga with weights is SO HARD. haha
I think I might be confused, but in this workout, are you supposed to do all three movements within each minute? And then repeat that 5 times? Because, not going to lie, 10 deadlifts + 10pushups + 10 burpees may take more than a minute.
i’m also a bit confused!
That’s totally what I thought, too. No way can I get through 10 deadlifts + 10 pushups + 10 burpees in under a minute without seriously sacrificing form!
ahhhh. sorry about that! it’s supposed to be 5 burpees. when i did that round this morning it took 40 seconds
Off topic …but I’m almost finished reading bread and wine by shauna niequist. Such a great read. And as a bonus she has a recipe at the end of each chapter…which are mostly gluten free. I thought of you today as i read it. I think you’d love it too!
Hello Gina,
Great post and great workout! Definitely short and sweet for sure. This will build up a burn extremely quickly. I’m also a little confused, like Jade, as to how exactly this was supposed to be done.
I also noticed that you said to warm-up for about 5 minutes. Do you have a recommended warm-up before diving into a pretty intense workout like this?
hi stephen,
so first the first round, you’ll set your timer for 5 minutes.
go through 10 squats to overhead press, 10 jump squats, and 20 mountain climbers (it took my about 40 seconds). rest until the next minute begins. when it starts, go through the exercises again. whatever is left of that minute (like if it only took you 35 seconds, you’d get 25 seconds to rest), use that to rest. complete the rounds 5 times total.
for a warm up, i would do some cardio to bring the heart rate up to a moderate intensity, or work through some functional movements (slow controlled push-ups, squats, deadlifts, a plank, etc)
Thank you for the clarification, Gina.
This is a workout that I plan on doing ASAP. Like I said before, it definitely seems like it is tough and gives you a burn relatively quickly.
Looks like a good one! I’m definitely giving it a try when I feel better : )
let me know if you do!
I like the looks of this! Short and sweet…will definitely try this tomorrow morning!
I like EMOMs ALOT…they are one of my favorite workouts! I get what people are saying though, the minutes seem quite full. Especially with the weighted exercises. Did you feel like your rushed at all through the weighted exercises and sacrificed form? I guess I will have to try it out and modify it if I need to.
Whoa! I definitely underestimated this! Monsoon sweat sesh!! Love!!
YASSSS> amazing job!
I’m definitely not in good enough shape to get through the 3 exercises in a minute, but modified and did each set continually for 5 minutes! It still got the heart rate up and the sweat dripping 🙂 Can’t wait to include this over the coming weeks and see some progress! Thanks for sharing!
that is PERFECT 🙂 so happy you got a great workout!
Feeling the burn! I couldn’t finish any of the sets in under a minute. Goals to work towards I guess. Thanks for sharing!
that is awesome!!!
I came to the blog yesterday to look for a total body workout and this was up! I was so excited! What does it mean, however, if I was doing the moves pretty quickly and it still took me the full minute?! Whoops. 🙂
LOVED the sweat!
i love EMOM workouts too! great heart ppumpers. i’d love if you could do a video for one too! it’s nice when someone calls it out 😉
Holy cow this was tough. I couldn’t finish all 5 rounds but was dripping in sweat. Going to keep coming back to see if I can improve.
This was TOUGH! I’m in my second trimester now but pretty fit. The first set I got a little rest until the next minute even though my squat and presses were pretty slow but the jump squats and mountain climbers were fast. Can’t say the same for the second and third emom. I got no rest between the minutes before having to start again lol. Might drop the weights next time to make it go faster but I am happy I got through it.
This looks like a pretty good workout. Do you recommend this for postpartum women? My wife and I are giving birth in May and she’s looking to snap back as fast as possible.