Sharing a HIIT and Strength workout video you can do at home. All you need is a pair of dumbbells to get an awesome total body and cardio workout.

Hi friends! Happy Tuesday! Hope you’re having a lovely morning. I’m so excited that you guys liked Meal Prep Blueprint! You can check out the post and download your free copy here.

For today’s post, I have an all-new workout for you! This one includes one of my favorite training strategies: combining compound strength work with sweaty cardio intervals. You get an intense and fun total body strength and cardio workout in 30 minutes and BOOM: energized and ready to crush the rest of the day!

HIIT and Strength Workout Video (you can do at home)

40 seconds on, 20 seconds of rest

3 rounds:

Weighted burpees

Push-up to dumbbell pass

Curtsy lunge to bent-arm lateral raise

Squat to dumbbell front press

Overhead triceps extension

Rock and roll to squat jump

3 jumping lunges to 1 front kick

Alternating snatch

40 seconds on, 20 seconds of rest

2 rounds:

Rotating squat jumps

Mountain climbers into a thruster

Here’s the full follow-along video:

Benefits of High Intensity Interval training:

HIIT is one of my favorite favorite exercise strategies. It consists of periods of hard work followed by rest. They’re short periods of work and rest. You can do these workout at home or at the gym. The workouts can be weighted or bodyweight exercises only. You can also do HIIT on a stationary bike to minimize impact.

There are TONS of benefits of HIIT (check out this podcast episode with the master) but some include:

– Increased size and density of mitochondria. These are the fat burning firehouses in our cells that promote a healthy metabolism.

– Increased speed, strength, power, and performance gains. HIIT is an excellent way to train your body to be more powerful for explosive movements, faster for running and sprinting, and stronger for heavier strength training work.

– Cardio health! HIIT trains our heart to work more effectively and can increase aerobic capacity. It can possibly help with blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and cholesterol.

– The workouts are SHORT and sweaty, and you’ll likely burn a lot of calories compared to steady-state cardio in less time. I would warm up and do HIIT for 15-25 minutes max. If you’re working hard, you won’t want to do longer than that. The fact that these workouts are super short makes it more realistic to catch a quick workout when you’re crunched for time.

Can you do HIIT while pregnant?

I would definitely check with your doctor before making any fitness changes, especially if you’re currently expecting. In general, if you’ve been doing high intensity intervals leading up to pregnancy, I would say that interval-style workouts are still ok but here’s the kicker: the goal is completely different.

Instead of trying to get to that “breathless, working your booty off, aiming for max heart rate” point, you’ll want to just do gentle intensity increases while minimizing the impact. (For all of the exercises above, I include low-impact modifications in the video!) During pregnancy, I don’t recommend using heart rate as an indicator of exertion, but instead go by perceived exertion (how hard do you feel like you’re working?? Don’t push it!) and the talk test. You should be able to say your entire address while you’re working out.

All in all, I think that pregnancy is the perfect time to focus on maintaining your activity level instead of adding time or intensity to your routine.

Favorite shoes for HIIT workouts:

I’ve changed up my favorite HIIT shoes so many times, but favorite for the past couple of years are APL. I LOVE that they’re super lightweight! They’re my go-to strength training and HIIT shoes (and I also wear them for life).

What are you favorite HIIT or cross training shoes?

Please let me know if you give today’s workout a try!

xo

Gina

More workouts you can do at home:

Bodyweight workouts you can do anywhere

Tabata and Strength workout video

15-minute Barre Burner workout

30-minute Power Yoga workout

Barre Strength Workout with Dumbbells

Dance Sculpt 30 minute cardio and strength workout