WORKOUT

This work­out serves as Day 4 of our Pow­er­ful with Tasha 10-Day Chal­lenge but can be used as a stand­alone work­out anytime!

Focus & Ben­e­fits: Prac­tic­ing your abil­i­ty to sus­tain a mod­er­ate effort dur­ing long work inter­vals helps build a strong aer­o­bic base from which to progress ath­let­ic per­for­mance as a lifter, run­ner, cyclist, swim­mer, and any oth­er move­ment modal­i­ty. Although our train­ing focus­es will vary through­out a life­time and how we alot our train­ing time across fit­ness cat­e­gories will change to reflect these inter­ests, there will always be a need for cross-dis­ci­pli­nary train­ing for any and all train­ing goals. In this work­out, we focus on main­tain­ing a mod­er­ate­ly chal­leng­ing pace for each exer­cise to keep the heart rate ele­vat­ed while min­i­miz­ing unsched­uled breaks. Although there are no intense jump­ing exer­cis­es in this rou­tine, low impact does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean ​“easy!”

Equip­ment: All you need is a mat and one mod­er­ate weight for the core fin­ish­er circuit.

Tips & Help­ful Infor­ma­tion: Rely on your per­ceived effort/​exertion to deter­mine if you need to adjust your pac­ing and/​or range of motion to either increase or decrease the inten­si­ty of the work­out. The goal is to fill each work­ing inter­val with as much move­ment as pos­si­ble, tak­ing as few unsched­uled rest peri­ods as pos­si­ble. Also note that the work inter­vals increase from 45 to 60 sec­onds from round 1 to 2 of each cir­cuit. Adjust your efforts accord­ing­ly to main­tain a sim­i­lar effort from one round to the next.

Dif­fi­cul­ty & Mod­i­fi­ca­tions Explained: This rou­tine is rat­ed as a lev­el 4 because of the coor­di­na­tion required for the exer­cis­es as well as the long dura­tion work intervals/​circuits. As you work your way to being com­fort­able with increas­ing­ly longer work inter­vals, take short 5‑to-10 sec­ond unsched­uled breaks through­out the inter­vals as need­ed. Addi­tion­al­ly, the fin­ish­er cir­cuit makes use of a sin­gle weight which increas­es the sta­bi­liza­tion chal­lenge of the exer­cis­es. Inclu­sion of this sin­gle-weight is option­al. Omit­ting the weight will help decrease the dif­fi­cul­ty of this final circuit.

Clos­ing Notes: This is a great rou­tine for work­ing up a sweat, mim­ic­k­ing strength and pow­er move­ment pat­terns while remain­ing unloaded, and work­ing on your car­dio­vas­cu­lar endurance with low impact exer­cis­es (the lat­ter being espe­cial­ly impor­tant for high impact endurance ath­letes such as run­ners). Have fun!

WORK­OUT
Warm-Up: 30 sec per exer­cise, no rest between exer­cis­es (4:00)
‑Alt. Hip Openers
‑No Hop Butt Kick­ers (ham­strings curls)
‑Reverse Lunge + Dou­ble Tor­so Rotation/​Knee Raise – R (rotate in lunge and standing)
‑Reverse Lunge + Dou­ble Tor­so Rotation/​Knee Raise – L (rotate in lunge and standing)
‑Squat-to-Plank Step Back
‑Full Plank: Alt. Hand Taps
‑Jump Rope Bounce
‑Lat­er­al­ly Step­ping Blastoff Squat

***30 sec off***

Cir­cuit For­mat – 2 rounds:
‑Round 1 = 45 sec on / 15 sec off
‑Round 2 = 60 sec on / 15 sec off
(30 sec off between rounds)

Endurance Cir­cuit #1: (~11:30)
‑3-Sec Tem­po Reverse Lunge + Knee Dri­ve – R (start­ing posi­tion: lunge)
‑Lat­er­al Push Off Squat-to-Side­kick – R
‑3-Sec Tem­po Reverse Lunge + Knee Dri­ve – L (start­ing posi­tion: lunge)
‑Lat­er­al Push Off Squat-to-Side­kick – L
‑Squat-to-Plank Step Backs + Up/​Downs

***Water Break***

Endurance Cir­cuit #2: (~11:30)
‑Twist­ing High Knee Hops (“Knee Repeaters”) – R
‑In-and-Out ​“Lad­der” Shuffle
‑Twist­ing High Knee Hops (“Knee Repeaters) – L
‑Squat + Alt. Heel-to-Heel Taps (tap cen­ter in squat)
‑Bear Crawl Jog (forward/​back)

***30 sec off***

My Weight (Not a rec­om­men­da­tion, just a reference):
‑10lbs. (4.5 kg) / 15lbs. (6.8 kg)

Weight­ed Core Fin­ish­er – 1 Weight: 45 sec on / 15 sec off / 2 rounds (~6:00)
‑Weight­ed Dead­bugs – R (sin­gle-limb load)
‑Weight­ed Dead­bugs – L (sin­gle-limb load)
‑Straight Leg Sit-Up with Weight Overhead

Cool-Down: approx. 30 sec per stretch (approx. 4:00)
‑Long Body Extend­ed Stretch (arms overhead)
‑Lying Ham­strings Stretch (supine) – R
‑Lying Ham­strings Stretch (supine) – L
‑Seat­ed Fig­ure 4 + Chest Open­er Stretch – R
‑Seat­ed Fig­ure 4 + Chest Open­er Stretch – L
‑Cross­body Shoul­der Stretch – R
‑Cross­body Shoul­der Stretch – L
‑Tree/​Self Hug Stretch (round­ed spine)