HIIT Workouts
by Journey to Health Program Director, Becky Anderson
I get bored easily. I always have. When I put together my work outs, I gravitate to the HIIT design. HIIT stands for high-intensity interval training. This is doing a specific exercise, for a short amount of time, at an aggressive level. After that short time, you switch to a different exercise. Typically, you can do 3-4 different exercises in a cycle, and then you would repeat that cycle 2-3 times.
Here is a typical order of activities for my HIIT work outs:
Brisk walk for 5 minutes, 20 jumping jacks, 20 squats, 20 pushups, 20 calf raises. Repeat 2-3 times.
If you have a list of HIIT exercises, I will usually do a cardiovascular exercise for 5 minutes to get your heart rate up, then do a round of the 3-4 HIIT exercises you picked, then another round of cardio, and repeat the 3-4 HIIT exercises for another cycle. Finish this with some stretching, and you have a high-quality work out in a short amount of time. Without getting bored.
HIIT exercise list (you can add to this as you wish):
- jumping jacks
- jump squats
- jumping rope
- push ups
- burpees
- mountain climbers
- plank
- bicycle crunches
- calf raises
- kickbacks/donkey kicks
- sidekicks/fire hydrants
The goal here is to find a way to get a good work out in and to keep you from getting bored. I tell people that are going to try HIIT work outs to plan to kick your own butt for 15-20 minutes, but then they’re done and will feel very accomplished.
