Hi, I'm starting to do my own HIIT bodyweight training and thought I would post my "routines" here in case anyone was looking for something similar. I'm not a personal trainer and I have no qualifications, I'm just sharing what I am personally doing to try to help out others! I got the idea watching some HIIT workout videos on youtube, but most of them are too advanced for me right now, so I thought I'd take a stab at creating my own, more basic workouts to work up to those.
The idea is to do short intervals of intense work, have a brief rest period, and then do another exercise. I'm a beginner, so I'm just doing basic exercises for short durations right now. Each workout is only 5-6 minutes, so it's not sustained cardio, but it's a great short burst of activity to get the blood pumping, muscles working and break a sweat! And short enough that I can convince myself to do it right before I hop in the shower, so it increases my total activity for the day. During each work interval go as hard/fast/intense as possible (while maintaining good form), then breathe it out during the rest interval.
I use a computer-based interval timer called
GymBossier (it's free to download).
I set my timer for 12 sets of 2 intervals: first (work interval) set to 20 secs, second (rest interval) set to 10.
-Pushups
-Squats
-Leg raises (lay on the floor, hands folded under your head, and lift both legs up to a 45-90 degree angle from the floor and lower them back down)
-Jumping Jacks
-Star plank "jumps" (start out in a normal plank position, then "jump" your legs out sideways so that you're in a star plank position, then "jump" them back in, repeat; if your toes aren't strong enough for this, just walk them out rather than jumping, the main thing is to keep the plank position the whole time)
-High knees
-Repeat!
HIIT Bodyweight Training
