Irene Alda

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YIIT: your zero excuse workout

I don’t have time, I’m traveling, it’s Christmas… these are the excuses we give ourselves when we don’t move our bodies. This is why, I propose to you a short and intense YIIT workout (Yoga Intensity Interval Training) to work your abs and legs. It is a little over 10 minutes including stretches!

Why this type of workout? Well, first of all it is very motivating to think “it is just 10 minutes”. And… more things of course. Short and intense workouts help to improve your cardiovascular health, improves oxygen consumption, are efficient to gain a good fitness level, and they increase your concentration (they oxygenate but don’t leave you exhausted).

You can complete this routine wherever you like: at home when you wake up, at the gym, in a short break at work. Material? You just need a mat and a stopwatch. You can also make it part of a longer workout. For instance, you can run for 30 minutes or do 30 minutes on the elliptical, and then complete the YIIT routine. Moreover, you can include it in your yoga practice if you have one. If you’d like a little more sweatiness, you can go through the sequence twice. 

As you will see in the image above, the exercises are dynamic or in the case of plank, static. Do as many repetitions as you can without losing correct form or alignment. The first row is focused on abs, the second on legs and obliques, and the last one is to stretch it out. There are some exercises that you will need to complete for both side (it is written on the image, no worries) and the same for the stretches. 

So… do you have 10 minutes? Well then, take your mat and stopwatch, and let’s go!