WORKOUT

This work­out serves as Day 9 of our Pow­er­ful with Tasha 10-Day Chal­lenge but can be used as a stand­alone work­out anytime!

Focus & Ben­e­fits: Even if you have specif­i­cal­ly defined phys­i­cal goals that tar­get one or two train­ing modal­i­ties, a steady pro­gres­sion towards achiev­ing these goals involves under­stand­ing the inter­play between cross-modal­i­ty train­ing and the rip­ple effect that aux­il­iary focus­es have on the advance­ment of over­all move­ment effi­cien­cies. That is, even if you’re a marathon­er train­ing to increase your aer­o­bic capac­i­ty and mileage (endurance), you will still need to include some short­er, speed­i­er run­ning ses­sions into your train­ing plan (high inten­si­ty, anaerobic-focused).

In this work­out, we com­bine both aer­o­bic and anaer­o­bic train­ing seg­ments to help the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem quick­ly and effi­cient­ly adjust to vary­ing ener­gy demands dur­ing one train­ing ses­sion. This abil­i­ty to accli­mate to dif­fer­ing inten­si­ties trains the mind and body to auto­mate your men­tal and phys­i­o­log­i­cal respons­es to chang­ing stim­uli while min­i­miz­ing ener­gy waste dur­ing these seg­ment transitions.

Equip­ment: All you need is a mat for the core fin­ish­er (and pos­si­bly some of the plank/​prone posi­tion exer­cis­es dur­ing the main seg­ments of the workout).

Tips & Help­ful Infor­ma­tion: Think of the HIIT (high inten­si­ty inter­val train­ing) ​“match or beat” seg­ments as your chance to go all-out with max­i­mum effort. If you were to talk dur­ing the HIIT work inter­vals, you would only be able to speak one to three words at a time before need­ing to take a break. In oth­er words, these seg­ments should leave you breath­less (or near­ly so); there­fore, you will need to push the pace and/​or make use of exer­cis­es progressions/​modifications to elic­it a high per­ceived effort. Count­ing your reps holds you account­able to main­tain­ing this high effort through­out the entire segment.

For the endurance ​“add-on” cir­cuits, your goal is to main­tain a con­sis­tent­ly chal­leng­ing, mod­er­ate pace that allows you to fill each work­ing inter­val with move­ment and min­i­mal unsched­uled breaks. Thus, the quick­ness with which you exe­cute the exer­cis­es in these seg­ments will most like­ly be slow­er than dur­ing the HIIT segments.

Dif­fi­cul­ty & Mod­i­fi­ca­tions Explained: This work­out is rat­ed as a lev­el 4 due to the shifts in ener­gy demands through­out as well as the for­mat and exer­cise sequenc­ing. Reduce your range of motion, opt for the regressions/​omit the hops, and/​or increase your rest peri­ods to decrease the over­all inten­si­ty of the workout.

Clos­ing Notes: Have fun with this work­out and exper­i­ment with putting your foot on the gas (HIIT, max effort) and cruis­ing at high speeds (endurance, mod­er­ate effort).

WORK­OUT
Warm-Up: 30 sec per exer­cise, no rest between exer­cis­es (5:00)
‑Alt. Hip Openers
‑Squat + Alt. Lat­er­al Leg Raises
‑Alt. Twist­ing Reverse Lunge (reach for out­side of foot)
‑Squat-to-Plank Step Back + Shoul­der Taps
‑Moun­tain Climbers (mid-tem­po)
‑Alt. Runner’s Lunges
‑3-Sec Iso Hold Blastoff Squat + Over­head Arm Swing
‑Horse Stance: Cross­es (mid-tem­po)
‑Trav­el­ing High Knee A‑Skips (forward/​back)
‑Lat­er­al Shuf­fles (mid-tem­po)

***30 sec off***

HIIT: Match or Beat For­mat: 30 sec on / 30 sec off / 3 rounds — Count your ful­ly com­plet­ed reps dur­ing the first round and attempt to match or beat this count dur­ing each sub­se­quent round.
Endurance: Add-On For­mat: Com­plete 30 sec­onds of exer­cise 1. Rest for 30 sec­onds. Then com­plete 30 sec­onds of exer­cise 1 fol­lowed imme­di­ate­ly by 30 sec­onds of exer­cise 2. Rest for 30 sec­onds. Fin­ish with 30 sec­onds each of exer­cis­es 1, 2, and 3.

HIIT Car­dio Cir­cuit #1: (2:30)
‑Plyo/​Star Jacks

***45 sec off***

Endurance Car­dio Cir­cuit #1: (4:00)
‑Squat Jump with For­ward Pop
‑Burpees
‑Scor­pi­on Moun­tain Climbers

***Water Break***

Endurance Car­dio Cir­cuit #2: (4:00)
‑Trav­el­ing Alli­ga­tor Jacks
‑2 For­ward Hops/​Jumps + High Knee Backpedal
‑Paus­ing Switch Jumps + Tor­so Rota­tions (rotate while land­ing in lunge position)

***45 sec off***

HIIT Car­dio Cir­cuit #2: (2:30)
‑Plank Jack Shoul­der Taps

***45 sec off**

Core Fin­ish­er: 30 sec on / 10 sec off / 3 rounds (~4:00)
‑V-Ups
‑Sprint­ers Sit-Up
‑Hol­low Hold

Cool-Down: approx. 30 sec per stretch (approx. 4:00)
‑Sphinx Pose Stretch
‑Cat/​Cow
‑Kneel­ing Quads/​Hip Flex­ors + Over­head Reach Lats Stretch – R
‑Kneel­ing Hamstrings/​Hinge Stretch – R
‑Kneel­ing Quads/​Hip Flex­ors + Over­head Reach Lats Stretch – L
‑Kneel­ing Hamstrings/​Hinge Stretch – L
‑Seat­ed: Chest Open­er Stretch (hands behind body)
‑Tree/​Self Hug Stretch (round­ed spine)