Training

7 HIIT Workouts You Can Do With Nothing But a Jump Rope

 

I’ve been traveling a ton this summer, going everywhere from Portland, OR to San Diego. It’s been a lot of fun, but it also means that 99% of the time when I’m gone I don’t have access to a gym.

But I don’t let that stop me from working out every single day (minus one rest day a week, of course). Whenever I travel for work or play I bring a jump rope with me because I know that no matter what else I have available to me, I’ll always be able to get a good workout using a jump rope (of course I also can with zero equipment, but a jump rope allows me to be a little bit more creative).

Here are 7 workouts you can do using nothing but a jump rope:

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10 Reasons Why I Love Boxing So Dang Much

 

Most of you have probably noticed by now that I’m slowly starting to incorporate more boxing and kickboxing exercises into the regular HIIT workouts on the site.

It’s something that I’ve been wanting to do since I first started 12 Minute Athlete, but in an effort to keep things simple at first I decided to wait until people got more used to the workouts before I started expanding the exercises and equipment by too much.

So in an effort to start convincing the skeptics among you, here are 10 reasons why I love boxing so dang much (and why I hope you will too):

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burpee variations

Founder of A Shot of Adrenaline, Todd Kuslikis, Talks Strength Building, Goal Setting, and Progressing With Bodyweight Training

 

Todd Kuslikis is the founder of A Shot of Adrenaline—an awesome site focused on getting fit and healthy through bodyweight training.

I’ve been a fan of Todd’s for a while now, and am in serious awe of his ability to do crazy tough bodyweight exercises like freestanding handstand push ups, muscle ups and levers. Recently, I was lucky enough to interview him about his own progress with bodyweight training and how he recommends others approach mastering their own body weight.

Here’s what Todd had to say:

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How to Practice Candlestick Rolls to Get Better at Pistols

 

Pistols are one of those crazy hard bodyweight exercises that require extreme levels of strength, balance, mobility, and coordination, making them tough for people of all fitness levels.

So in today’s video, I’m going to show you how to get better at pistols by practicing your candlestick pistol rolls.

You’ll want to start by first practicing a basic candlestick roll, so that you can get a sense of how the movement should feel before transitioning into pistol candlestick rolls. This will help you figure out the movement and the momentum needed to get yourself up off the ground back onto your feet.

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25 Mantras to Get You Through 100 Burpees

 

There’s no question about it: doing 100 burpees in a row is tough.

It doesn’t matter how fit you are, or how many burpees you do on a regular basis—there’s just something about doing 100 in a row that’s not only physically hard, but incredibly mentally challenging as well.

Honestly, as many times as I’ve done 100 burpees now, it’s still really hard for me. The morning I know that’s going to be my workout for the day, I secretly dread them and find as many ways to procrastinate actually doing them as possible. And that moment before I hit the GO button on the stopwatch? I get butterflies in my stomach even thinking about it.

That’s why I’m so incredibly proud of so many of you for getting past those mental and physical hurdles and doing the 100 burpee challenge every month. It’s not easy, and no matter how fast you’re able to do them, you should be proud of yourself for even attempting them!

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4 Drills You Can Do To Get Stronger and Better at Handstands

 

You might have noticed that I talk about handstands quite a bit on the site—and if you follow me on Instagram, you probably see that I actually do them pretty often as well.

That’s because handstands are one of the best possible exercises you can do—not only do they build immense amounts of upper body and core strength, they’re great for balance and challenge you mentally like crazy.

Yet there’s no doubt about it: handstands are hard. If you’re not strong enough to hold them much at all yet they can be extremely frustrating, and the balance part of handstands is ridiculously challenging, even for people who have worked on them for years.

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11 HIIT Workouts Perfect For Your Summer Vacation (No Excuses!)

 

There’s no question about it: once summer rolls around, it’s all too easy to get lazy and start skipping your workouts.

When you’re out of your normal routine and have to choose between a cold beer by the pool, or a workout and then a beer by the pool, a lot of people will just go straight to the pool and miss their workout altogether—which can then lead to bad workout habits later on.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! You can work out on vacation, even if you have very little space or equipment.

One of the best things you can do when you’re traveling is to bring a jump rope with you wherever you go—not only is it an awesome tool to add complexity to your workouts, it also takes up very little space and can be shoved in even the tiniest suitcase, no problem.

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New Year’s Resolution Check-In (Six Months!)

We’re now officially halfway through the year.

I know, where has the time gone? I swear, the more I want to accomplish, the faster time goes by. Crazy how that works.

At the beginning of the year, I promised to check in with you every three months to see how your progress was going and to help keep you accountable for your resolutions. Well, April has already passed us by, and now we’re into July.

So how are you doing with your goals for the year?

Are you making progress? Feeling discouraged? Or have you forgotten about them altogether?

If that’s the case, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most people forget about their New Year’s resolutions within just a couple of weeks. The good news? You still have time.

We still have six months of 2014 to accomplish all our goals!

But first, let’s take a look at how you should have created your goals in the first place—and whether you might want to reevaluate your goals for this year.

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Are Cool Downs Really Necessary?

 

If you’re like me, you’ve probably been told for most of your life (especially if you were a high school athlete) that you need to cool down after you exercise.

I specifically remember being told this after my soccer games as a teenager or even in P.E. after running sprints. My coach told me I could not sit down, no matter what—even though all I wanted to do was lie there in a heap of sweat and exhaustion.

Later on, when I studied for my personal training certification, I quickly realized there was a general consensus among trainers about how to properly go about working out: a 10-minute or so warmup, a 45-minute-ish workout, and a 5-10 minute cool down. Now don’t get me started on the warmup/workout time (I’ll save those for another post)—today I just want to focus on the cool down, and whether this consensus is actual science that you need to follow.

So what happens when you skip the cool down completely after your workout (as many of us no doubt do)? And are cool downs really necessary?

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How to Build the Ultimate Home Gym

 

I really, truly believe that you can get an awesome workout using absolutely ZERO equipment.

You’ll see these types of workouts appear regularly on 12 Minute Athlete, and can find examples of them here, here, and here. But if you’re really set on ditching your gym membership and want to do the home workout thing, you’ll probably want to slowly build up your equipment and set up a space that keeps you feeling motivated and ready to work as hard as you can.

Now, unless you don’t live in a tiny apartment or in a city, you probably don’t have a dedicated space you can carve out solely for your home gym. I definitely didn’t until I got lucky and was able to claim a space in my garage in my latest home. But you can still create an awesome home gym even if you have to put everything away every time you use it.

Here are what I consider to be the essential items, nice to have items, and recovery gear every home gym should have:

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