When I give you a workout that will only be 5 or so minutes long, you’d better be ready to give it all you’ve got!  With your time invested being only a few minutes, your trade off for time is definitely intensity.  When you put forth your absolute best effort with these short exercise challenges, you WILL get a return on your investment!

My promise is to bring you 5 short, intense workouts over the next month that you can use anywhere – the cottage, your yard, your bedroom before the kids wake up… Basically, I wanted a do-anywhere, time-efficient and super-intense workout that can keep you on track when you just can’t make it in for a workout.  Even if you are still able to come to classes all summer, these little challenges are an amazing supplement that your body will thank you for!

Here’s our first challenge, coming to you for the first of the month!!  By the way, you’re getting a new one on August 4th and every Sunday morning for the rest of the month!!

The Lucky Sevens:  Here’s what you need to do…

7 Squats… easy, right?  Complete your best range squat with a tempo that challenges you and follow the 7 squats immediately with… 7 burpees!  Here’s the kicker… repeat these 2 exercises for a total of 7 rounds and record your time!**

I LOVE this challenge because I HATE burpees!  You don’t have to go quickly, but you DO have to use your best technique.  I guarantee your heart rate will be up, I guarantee you will have worked your whole body with this challenge, and I guarantee you will walk away feeling like you had a real workout.  Would you feel this way if you did 7 squats and 7 biceps curls?  NOPE!  You need big bang for time, full-body actions that really challenge the body – not single-joint/isolation exercises that don’t challenge enough muscle to make an impact.  You know the trade-off – you’re committing about 5 minutes to this challenge so you need to work hard to make those minutes count!!

Just so you know, there will be NO MORE BURPEES in any of the upcoming challenges! All 5 workouts all offer a challenge but they each give you something a little different.

Give my Lucky Sevens challenge a shot and feel free to curse my name the whole time.  Trust me – I’ve done this challenge myself several times and yes, I may have cursed a bit in my mind (ok, out loud…), but did I ever feel like a million bucks for doing it.  That’s part of the pay off – the feeling you get when you’re done!!

**As always, listen to your body and train smart – do not do any exercise that doesn’t feel right or one that you know you shouldn’t be doing for any reason.  That’s what modifications are for!  This challenge would be filed in the ‘advanced’ category – for those of you just getting started, don’t hesitate to email me so I can give you a challenge based on your current level of fitness and experience.