My breathing was labored as I sprinted across the rooftop. The hot Indian sun baked down, cooled only slightly by the breeze flowing off the water that rushed below me. I reached the end and dropped into a set of pushups, the red clay of the roof hot on my hands. Sweat soaked into my shirt, a monkey screeched in the street below. Popping up in inspiration, I took off crawling on all fours like a monkey, minus the screeching. Reaching the end, I took off running again, flying through the humid air.
My timer beeped, and I walked to the edge of the roof, my heart racing. As I looked down at the hundreds of people milling about below me, the cows plodding slowly along the rutted street, and the Ganges river rushing past, I laughed. Partly from the ridiculousness of my situation, partly from the sheer joy of it.
While living in an ashram in India, that was my daily workout routine. Without a lot of time between yoga and meditation sessions, and without space to move, I had to improvise. In my search, I stumbled across the rooftop of our building and although it was only maybe 40 meters long, I had to make it work. Through this experience I learned two very important things: How to exercise anywhere, and how to get in a killer workout when you only have 15 or 20 minutes.
Killer Fifteen Minute Workouts
Do you feel like you should be working out but just don’t have the time?
The truth is: You can still get a workout in, even if you only have fifteen minutes.
When I go to the gym (which is almost never) I’m surprised by the lack of intensity that people bring to their workouts. They’ll stand around, walk over to a machine, do a few reps, get a drink, stand around some more… And before you know it , they’ve wasted away an entire hour without really achieving anything.
The Power of Intensity
The key to a killer workout when you’re short on time is intensity. Often times, fifteen minutes of focused , high intensity cardio or weight training is more effective than an hour of dilly dallying. When’s the last time you’ve exercised hard? How long has it been since you went all out?
Now I know that probably sounds like hell to a lot of people, but its incredibly powerful. If you feel stuck in your workout routine, if you feel like you have reached a fitness plateau and aren’t make any progress, or if you just have ten or fifteen minutes to workout…you need to up the intensity.
Upping the Intensity
There are two key ways to increase the intensity of your workouts:
1. Increase effort. Go hard, Sprint instead of jog, push yourself.
2. Decrease the time between exercises.
By decreasing your recovery time, by working your muscles while they are tired, you increase the effectiveness of your workout all while decreasing the time you need to spend working out.
Sample Workouts
In typical Wild Movement fashion, all these workouts are completely body weight and require nothing more than your body and the desire to get fit.
Note: Both of these workouts are based on time. Warm up- then set a timer for 20, 15 or even 10 minutes and go hard until it sounds.
Remember: The key is high intensity. Both these workouts are simply intended to give you some ideas on places to start. If the intensity is high and you perform the exercises with good form… You can’t go wrong.
Workout #1: The Pyramids of Fitness
This workout is designed to be performed indoors, without a lot of space to move.
How to Perform This Workout
This epic test of manliness( or womanliness) consists of three “pyramids.” Pyramids are sets where you start at one rep, increase by ones to ten reps, and than decrease by ones back to one rep.
The three exercises are:
- Pushups
- Pull-ups
- Dips.
Start by doing one pull-up, then do one push-up, and then one dip. Next move to two pull-ups, two push-ups and so on. Continue this process until you reach ten reps of each exercise, and then make your way incrementally back to one or until your timer sounds.
If this is too difficult for you, feel free to scale it to meet your current fitness level. Also, any of the above three exercises can be replaced with crunches, burpees etc.
Workout #2: The Rooftop Routine
This workout is designed to be performed outside, or in a large indoor space.
Again, try and perform this workout continuously with little or no rest. Set a timer and keep moving till it beeps.
How to Perform this Workout
1. Sprint 50 meters
2. Do 5-10 pushups
3. Bear-crawl for 20 meters
4. Repeat!
Don’t Let a busy schedule stand in the way of your health. You can get fit, even if you only have fifteen minutes a day to spare– it’s all just a matter of making those minutes count.
My Question For You
Sweating my tail off on a rooftop next to the Ganges was definitely one of the craziest workouts I have ever done, maybe except for playing tag with a spider monkey, but I’ll tell you about that later.
Now tell me… what is the craziest workout you have ever done???
Be strong. Be well.
To your health and happiness,
Logan
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