Finding a whole hour to dedicate to your workout 3-5 times/week in order to stay fit and healthy is hard with the busy lifestyles so many of us have. That’s why I’m such a big fan of HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts. They are high intensity so you know you are working, they are over quickly so you can back to your day, and they help burn fat and build muscle all at the same time! I remember the days when an interval workout meant needed a stop watch or a watch with lap features in order to keep track of your intervals, but now there are so many apps available on our phones and devices that we have literally all we need right in our pockets!
Today I want to share a beginners HIIT workout I’ve put together for you. I’ve found that a lot of the HIIT workouts I see online are more advanced, have a lot of plyometrics and power moves in them. That can make them too difficult for beginners and those looking for a lower impact workout that is still challenging. If you’ve shied away from HIIT workouts in the past for those reasons, I hope that you’ll give them another try. They really are a great way to workout!
In this HIIT workout I have combined five different exercises which we will do for 40 seconds, then rest for 20 seconds before moving onto the next exercise. If you are really short on time you can go through the workout once and be done, but if you’d like more of a challenge you can either go through a couple of rounds, or increase the work period to 50 seconds, and reduce the rest to 10 seconds.
The five moves are:
Heel Jack
Reach your right heel out into a heel dig as you swing your arms up as you would for a jumping jack and then step your feet back together. Repeat with a left heel dig. If you would like to increase the intensity feel free to make this into a regular jumping jack.
Squat to Press
In this variation on a burpee, we start with our legs wider than hip width apart, then bend our knees sinking through our hips into a squat as we reach towards the floor. Keep your chest lifted and abdominals engaged to maintain good spinal alignment. Then press evenly through your feet as you lift up out of the squat and reach your arms overhead into an overhead press. Repeat.
Football Feet
Start with your feet together and then step out to the right, then out to your left, in with your right, then in with your left. Think, “wide, wide, narrow, narrow” or “out, out, in, in”. You can can this as slowly or as quickly as you like.
Plank with optional Knee Drive
In the photo above I am showing the more advanced option where you start in a full plank then lift your right foot, exhale as you bring your right knee towards your right elbow, then inhale as you return your foot to the starting position and then repeat on the left side. Instead you can choose to hold a stationary full plank, or drop down into a kneeling plank if the plank with knee drives is too much.
Lunges
Take a large step forward with your right foot, lifting your left heel off the floor. Bend both knees to no more than 90 degree as you lower straight down towards the floor. Then press through both feet and squeeze your glutes to lift up out of the squat and step back into your starting position. Repeat on the left leg. Make sure that your front knee stays in line with your ankle, and how deep you go into your lunge is up to you – quality over quantity!
As you can tell from the photos above, I like to hold onto my phone while doing HIIT workouts. It makes it easy to see how much time I’ve got left and then I don’t have to worry about missing my break periods (as if 😉 ). I don’t know about you, but I’m an accident waiting to happen. I am always dropping everything, especially my phone. Did you know that Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4 provides the sturdy protection that accident prone people like me need as it is the toughest cover glass yet. Not only that but Gorilla Glass 4 performs up to 2x better than competitive glass designs in devices dropped from 3 feet high. Let’s be real, I’ve dropped my phone from at least 3 feet high three times already TODAY. I’m telling you, I am a klutz! With Gorilla Glass 4, the focus is on improving damage resistance against sharp contact, such as a drop on asphalt, concrete, and other rough surfaces so people like me don’t have to worry if we drop our devices while working out (or otherwise) when Gorilla Glass 4 is on call protecting them.
Before you run off to try out this HIIT workout, find out if Gorilla Glass is protecting your device by visiting: https://goo.gl/ATR0ni. Then go workout and come back and let me know how it went!
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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Corning® Gorilla® Glass. The opinions and text are all mine.