This is the first of what will (hopefully!) be a continuing series of at-home workouts that I’ll share once a week, on Sundays. The idea is that these workouts be accessible, convenient and effective. If you’ve got a mat (or towel), a set of dumbbells (or soup cans…seriously!) and half an hour, you should be able to sneak this workout into your daily routine and burn off a few of those Sunday brunch cals…so that you can head right into football game calorie-consumption activities guilt-free(ish). Seriously, though: I just love a Sunday workout. I feel like it winds my week down in a way that helps me feel productive, happy and healthy, regardless of how the previous six days unfolded.
This particular workout is heavy on the body resistance-based movements, which means you’re only gonna need equipment (a set of dumbbells) for TWO of the exercises (there are 10 total). If you don’t have a set of dumbbells and don’t feel like buyin’ any, you can (and I am not kiddin’ around) use soup cans or anything else in your house that’s kinda heavy that you can fit your hand around. If you happen to have a resistance band, you can use that instead of dumbbells for the two movements that require weights. If you’re not feelin’ weights, bands or soup cans, you can simply eliminate the movements altogether and just move on to the next exercise; you can do them without any weight at all and just work on your form, or (since both movements that require weights are upper-body movements) you can do push-ups of any variation in their place, which would be a great substitute for the weight-based movements.
I did this workout myself, and I got good and sweaty before the first circuit was even over. That could be a result of the fact that I did it in a well-windowed room of my house while it was over 100 degrees outside (seriously, Arizona has not received the “it’s almost fall” memo), or it might just be the sign of a good workout…I’m feelin’ like it was a healthy dose of both. In any event, I completed two circuits of this workout and I managed to burn just under 200 calories in 20 minutes, which is pretty darn efficient, in my book. You’ll see a few places where the reps per exercise has a range (e.g., 12-15): that just means that you should shoot for the minimum amount of reps, but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t get to the max for every circuit. Fitness is all about making progress, and not everyone starts out at the same level, so I’ve outlined a few places where it might work for you to do a lil more, or a lil less. Ultimately, the goal is to be challenged without feeling like you were hit by a truck the next day, so: do enough reps to get a good workout, keeping in mind that you’ve got at least two sets of each exercise!
I recommend starting out by doing this full circuit two times through (I complete one full circuit on the video with full reps of each movement), and, if you’re into it, go for a total of three or four circuits, depending on your level of fitness and how much time you’ve got! I really hope that y’all get as much out of this workout as I did!
Happy Sunday!
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