WORKOUT

Focus & Ben­e­fits: Hav­ing one of those days? You know the kind of day you real­ly don’t want to exer­cise but would feel bet­ter if you did? While I know it can be tough, I put togeth­er a real­ly bal­anced, feel-good, 30-minute work­out just for this occa­sion. The short length, sim­plic­i­ty of exer­cis­es and bored eas­i­ly for­mat make this an approach­able way to get mov­ing if you’re hav­ing an off-day or are return­ing to exer­cise after injury or ill­ness. I’m con­fi­dent that you’ll walk away feel­ing bet­ter than you start­ed after this bal­ance of low-impact car­dio, total body strength, and mobility.

Equip­ment: Light to medi­um dumb­bells and an option­al mat.

Tips & Help­ful Infor­ma­tion: This rou­tine packs a bit of every­thing to leave you feel­ing ener­gized, instead of deplet­ed. We start by eas­ing into the work­out with an extend­ed car­dio warmup where you’ll com­plete some gen­tle exer­cis­es to acti­vate your mus­cles, sup­port blood flow, and ele­vate your heart rate. After that, you’ll be ready to head into the total body strength sec­tion which con­sists of 10 exer­cis­es, each com­plet­ed only once. Com­pre­hen­sive­ly, these 10 exer­cis­es tar­get every major mus­cle group. Final­ly, we will fin­ish with a lengthy cooldown, includ­ing stretch­es and mobil­i­ty, for the whole body.

We have many rou­tines in our library for car­dio on ​“days you don’t wan­na” but I real­ly want­ed to cre­ate some­thing a bit more well-round­ed for the per­son who needs a sol­id kick­start back into exer­cise. If you’re return­ing from an injury, ill­ness or exer­cise break… you’re in the right place. The exer­cis­es select­ed are sim­ple in nature, yet effec­tive. In oth­er words, you like­ly won’t be required to learn any­thing new in this par­tic­u­lar work­out which should increase the approach­a­bil­i­ty factor.

Dif­fi­cul­ty & Mod­i­fi­ca­tions Explained: This work­out is rat­ed a lev­el 2 out of 5 due to the low com­pli­ca­tion of move­ments, use of light-mod­er­ate weights, and over­all mod­er­ate tem­po of the work­out. You can eas­i­ly progress this to a lev­el 3 by adding weight and com­plet­ing more reps per inter­val dur­ing the car­dio and strength portions.

Clos­ing Note: I hope this gives you the boost in ener­gy and moti­va­tion you need­ed. I know it usu­al­ly feels bet­ter to do some move­ment than none at all, and I hope hav­ing this in your back pock­et can help with con­sis­ten­cy when you need it. Let me know how you’re feel­ing post-work­out below!

Rec­om­men­da­tions: For oth­er work­outs to do on ​“days you don’t wan­na” you can try these:

Mel­low Car­dio for Days When You Don’t Wan­na: Gen­tle Begin­ner Car­dio Work­out (24 min | Lev­el 2)
Total Body Bal­ance Walk­ing Work­out (34 min | Lev­el 2)
Stress Reliev­ing Low-Impact Car­dio Inter­vals (29 min | Lev­el 3)

– WORK­OUT OUTLINE –

Car­dio Warmup (8:00) — 40s each

1. Neck Cir­cles, switch halfway
2. Alt. Over­head Cross Reach
3. Floor Sweeps
4. Lat­er­al Hip Shifts + Reach, alternating
5. Sumo Squat with Rotation
6. Low Rota­tion Jab + High Cross Reach – One Side
7. Low Rota­tion Jab + High Cross Reach – Oth­er Side
8. 2 Rota­tions + Knee Drive
9. Squat with Row
10. Butt Kick Jack
11. 3 Knee Dri­ves + Step­back – one side
12. 3 Knee Dri­ves + Step­back – oth­er side

WATER BREAK

Strength Cir­cuit (10:00) — 45s work / 15s rest

1. Front Squat
2. Split Stance Shoul­der Press
3. Reverse Lunge + Alt. OH Press
4. RDL
5. Upright Row
6. Side Lunge with SA Row, alt.
7. Kneel­ing Pushup
8. Kneel­ing Hip Thrust
9. Bird Dog
10. Fire Hydrant

WATER BREAK

Lengthy Stretch Cooldown (8:00) — 40s each

1. Run­ner with Wind­mill Arm – R
2. Pigeon – R
3. Run­ner with Wind­mill Arm – L
4. Pigeon – L
5. Thread the Nee­dle to Kneel­ing Shoul­der Stretch – R
6. Thread the Nee­dle to Kneel­ing Shoul­der Stretch – L
7. Child’s Pose
8. Angled Child’s Pose – R and L
9. 90/90 + Oblique Stretch – R
10. 90/90 + Oblique Stretch – L
11. But­ter­fly Stretch
12. Seat­ed Ham­string Stretch – Center
13. Seat­ed Ham­string Stretch + OH Reach – R and L