Thoughts.

Just finished up this guy. Without further ado:

5 pushups
10 lunge jumps*
15 situps**

all of that constitutes 1 set.

Do 20 sets or go for 15 minutes, whichever is sooner.

Stay Strong,
Mackey

Notes:
-Keep pushing! Don’t take breaks between exercises or sets, just go straight into the next one.
-If you get too tired to do regular pushups, go to your knees and keep going; if you can’t keep doing lunge jumps, regular lunges or jumping in place is ok too, just don’t stop for more than a second or two.
-I got through 20 sets in 14:12, if you want a standard for comparison.

*5 each leg. Start in lunge position, push off, switch legs in midair, land in a lunge w/other leg forward (we’ve done these in winter conditioning before). repeat.
**whatever kind of situp you like–crunches are ok, doing “runners,” cycling your legs in midair, is probably easiest to maintain. Count one for every other leg if you do those.

How it works:
I like these kinds of arrangements for conditioning workouts, as they’re quick and efficient. By pairing different exercises and not taking breaks between them, your body is always working, but the individual muscle groups worked get a short break (a la circuit workouts). Nothing special to note here in terms of energy systems or the like, but doing a workout like this is superior in terms of general conditioning to more stop-go types of work (those have their role too for more specific conditioning, however–more on that if you blitz me or wait until the winter), as you hit more or less your entire body in short order doing this.

If you’re so inclined, you can improvise using a similar structure in your own workouts. As a general rule, you want to pair exercises that work different muscle groups (i.e., you don’t want to do lunges followed by squats followed by jumping in place, as it will overwork your hips/quads in short order), and you want to keep the reps on the low end of things so you can keep working through it when tired. I like this workout a lot as it hits the upper body with pushups (a vastly underrated exercise), works your legs explosively with lunge jumps, and then gives you some time on the ground doing situps to work your core.