Last week Dar and I hit her garage gym on a particularly awesome (first day above 80) afternoon.  As you will soon start to figure out, we have very different preferences when it comes to designing our own workouts, but what that means for our purposes here is that you get two full circuits today instead of one.

My circuits are typically time based rather than chipper style, but I changed things up today to just give myself a little consistency.  I’m not a fan of counting on timed workouts, or timing counted ones (which is just one of many reason’s I don’t love CrossFit), but rather want to focus on consistency, length, and form.  Here’s what I settled on:

I’m really loving kettlebells right now so there are a few movements in this workout, balanced out with some really effective bodyweight movements that can be incredibly effective.  Step ups are always a good option for anyone, and any fitness level.  When I’m feeling good I’ll crank up the step ups to box jumps, but as I’m still recovering I happily rocked the step up.

The other bodyweight movement in here was an ad-hoc, chalk drawn agility drill that I called the ‘dot drill’ but drew with x’s on the driveway.  This seems like one of the most fun sections, but I assure you, it will fire up your quads before you know it.  Here are the basics:

Start in the center.

Jump feet forward onto front 2 x’s

Back to center:

Jump back:

Jump back to center, and that counts as one.

Staying in a low stance with bent knees and an engaged core help to make the movement most efficient, but as you can imagine, it cranks up the burn a bit.  It’s a good burn, so jump right into it!

If you want to scale the workout down I recommend taking the reps down to 20, and/or take it down to 4 rounds.

As I worked my way through the reps, Dar went with a little more aggressive circuit for herself, less reps and higher weight, all for time.

 

Since Dar is pretty abbreviated with her descriptions, and skilled with her movements, here is some clarification:

•  DU’s are double unders (when you jump rope and it makes two full revolutions around before your feet hit the ground again).  They can be challenging and definitely take a little practice, so if you’re not advanced with that skill, just triple the number and do single jumps.
• Kettlebell snatches: these are a little more complicated, so Dar let me take pictures of her doing a couple so you can get the basics.  If you’re not experienced in kettlebells, you can (should) substitute in a dumbell snatch.

At any rate, here is what it looks like in action:

 

Again, the KB snatch is very difficult to learn and do correctly, so don’t try to do it without having a solid background of instructional training with kettlebells.

Both of our workouts were great, and left us happily sweating (and puffing) afterwards.  Since then we’ve done several more workouts we will share with you, including a simple barbell workout and the first bootcamp workout from yesterday that kicked off with 20+ campers.

Until then, I leave you with your moment of zen (aka one of Dar’s mobility stretches):