40 Min Full Body Calisthenics & Core is Day 8 in Heather Robertson‘s HR12Week 5.0 program.
This was an intense bodyweight strength workout. Heather works your entire body with no equipment and elevates your heart rate to give you some cardio, too. Or at least mine got up there! Not super high but still, I was working hard. Heather gets you started with some easy calisthenics in the warm up as a sort of preview of whats to come. I really enjoyed this workout. It was a nice break from all from of the dumbbell strength I have been doing.
This is a circuit based workout. There are 3 circuits. The first two circuits are calisthenic circuits. The exercises are done for 40 seconds of work followed by 20 seconds of recovery. The third and final circuit is a core circuit. Those exercises are done for 40 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. There is a timer in the lower right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. During the recoveries Heather previews the next exercise.
40 Min Full Body Calisthenics & Core is 39:36 minutes; 40 second intro, 4:40 minute warm up and a 3:50 minute stretch. Equipment: yoga block and fitness mat. The yoga block is for tricep dips. I used a chair instead of a yoga block.
Circuit 1: (40/20 intervals)
- Combo pike push up (do one regular push up then walk hands back towards feet until you are in pike position and do one pike push up, walk hands back out to plank and repeat this combo)
- Bear crawl (on hands and toes with knees bent at 90 degrees and knees hovering just above mat, walk laterally in this position the length of the mat and back)
- Squat & hold (lower to bottom of squat and hold isometrically entire interval)
- Squat jumps (low impact modification: lower into squat and when you raise out of squat, raise onto toes)
- Repeat #1-4 two more times
30 second rest
Circuit 2: (40/20 intervals)
- Tricep dips (start sitting on bottom, knees are bent with feet on floor, hands rest on yoga block behind you, lift bottom off mat and keep it raised while bending elbows in tricep dip)
- Hold elbow plank
- Stand up & kick (start in kneeling lunge with hands behind head, raise out of lunge bringing back leg forward into straight leg front kick, touch toe with opposite hand, lower back into kneeling lunge)
- Repeat #3 on other side of body
- Repeat #1-4 two more times
30 second rest
Circuit 3: (40/10 intervals)
- Frog crunch (lay on back, hands behind head, legs are raised off floor, keeping feet together, pull knees into chest, opening knees and bringing elbows to knees then push legs out straight at a 45 degree angle)
- Flutter kick (lay on back on mat, hands behind head and head/shoulders elevated, legs extended out straight, hold this position while legs flutter kick)
- Reverse tuck & kick out (lay on back on mat with hands on mat beside glutes, lift legs up past head while also lifting hips into a reverse crunch, lower legs and push them out straight in line with hips)
- Side bridge (in side elbow plank with top arm extended to ceiling, raise and lower hips)
- Repeat #4 on other side of body
- Full body crunch (lay on back on mat, arms are extended overhead and legs are extended straight at 45 degrees, bring knees into chest, lifting head/shoulders and tap hands to ankles)
For more info on Heather Robertson’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.
