3 Quick 10 minute workouts
Working out doesn’t have to take 2 hours at a time, sometimes maybe you have limited time, or maybe you’re new to working out and need some easing in or maybe, you need a quick finisher to add on to your existing workout, regardless of the circumstances, ive got you covered.
Workout 1: Full Body Met-Con
Met-Con stands for metabolic conditioning, and is used by athletes to increase their bodies metabolic output, leading to more lean body mass, more fat oxidation and higher muscular adaption. Met-Con workouts can lead to you getting lean and fit in no time at all. Similar to a HIIT workout, a Met-Con revolves around you keeping your heart rate high with very little to no rest, traditionally done with a mix of weighted exercises, bodyweight exercises and cardio. Normally tacked on to the end of a weightlifting or athletic training session, these can be done in as little as 10 minutes, such as the simple quick workout I’m going to share with you now.
This one is simple, all it requires is a skipping rope and a set of dumbbells, if you don’t have either, then substitute the skips for jumping jacks and the dumbbell thrusters with a bodyweight exercise of your choice like push-ups or squats.
- Dumbbell thrusters x10
- Burpees x10
- Situps x10
- Skips x100
The aim of this workout is to get as many completed sets of these exercises as you can, in 10 minutes. 1 set is completing all the prescribed reps of all the exercises, once that is done go back to the starting exercise and go again, you can rest, but try to keep rest times as low as possible. This is a very basic met-con style workout and as such, don’t try to do it for 40 minutes at a time, most of the science surrounding met-con style workouts suggests that once you hit longer timescales, you cease to utilize the right energy systems and as such, begin to train sub optimally, so keep it low in time and high in intensity.
Workout 2: Hill sprints
Hill sprints are by far one of my most favourite conditioning exercises, all you need is access to a hill or a treadmill with adjustable gradient and you could become an absolute cardio machine. To complete a hill sprint workout you just have to sprint up the hill and then jog or walk back down, once at the bottom, sprint up again, deceptively simple but absolutely amazing for your cardiovascular abilities. If you’re new to fitness and exercise then hill sprints can be your quick easy cardio, you will reap the rewards if you use them consistently, I try to use them once a week. For the hill to use, try to find one which takes around 7 – 10 seconds to sprint up and for progression try to add an extra sprint on each week.
- Beginner Workout – 5 hill sprints
- Advanced Workout – 10 hill sprints
Workout 3: The Pyramid
Another quick simple workout, all this workout requires is you finding 5 exercises, they can be bodyweight exercises, dumbbell exercises, barbell exercises, Don’t be afraid to mix and match, I personally like doing this with bodyweight exercises. to complete this workout all you need to do is do 10 reps of each exercise, then with as little rest as possible, complete nine reps of each of this exercise, continue going down until you reach 0, very simple, very effective, I particularly like tacking this on to the end on my workouts but it could be considered for a quick workout on a rest day or if you’re really pressed for time. My bodyweight cluster goes as follows:
- Push ups x10
- Squats x10
- Burpeesx10
- Sit-ups x10
- Dips x10
If you need a bit more from this workout, once you reach 1 rep on all of the exercises you can then reverse and work your way back up to 10 reps for each exercise. Remember you can do any mix of exercises you want.
I hope you give these quick workouts a try and see what you think of them, remember to train hard and stay civilized and ill see you again next time.
