17 October 2010
The 20-Minute HIMYM Workout
Okay, so thanks to my roommate, I’ve gotten a little bit addicted to the show How I Met Your Mother. She has all five seasons on DVD, and slowly but surely, I’ve been working my way through all of them. It’s the perfect thing to do when I have 20 minutes to kill (I may or may not be watching an episode RIGHT NOW!). But the other day, I decided I could take care of something else while I was watching the show: my workout for the day.
As my Your Nutritionista Consulting clients know, I’m an advocate of short but intense workouts. I don’t think you need (or should) be in the gym for hours — you can get an efficient workout in about 20 minutes (and you WON’T be starving later!). And hey, if you can multitask by working out while you do something else you want to do, what’s not to love??
I knew a 20-minute HIMYM* episode was the perfect opportunity to multitask. I popped a DVD in (I think I was watching season 4 at the time), and kept the timer on the DVD player up so I could see the time on the episode. Each episode is about 20 minutes, so I decided to do a new exercise move every minute, alternating between cardio and strength. This is essentially circuit training, and it’s my favorite way to work out. It’s efficient, never boring (because you’re never doing the same thing for more than a minute or two), and lends itself well to multitasking.
You can essentially pick any exercises you want, as long as you’re able to do them for a minute. If you want a circuit workout, alternate between cardio and strength moves. If you want just cardio or just strength, pick only those types of moves. Here’s a sample workout that requires only a set of dumbbells:
The HIMYM 20-Minute Multitasking Workout
- minute 1: standing mountain climbers
- minute 2: alternating lunges with dumbbells
- minute 3: fake jump rope
- minute 4: bicep curls
- minute 5: jumping jacks
- minute 6: arnold presses
- minute 7: run in place
- minute 8: dumbbell squats
- minute 9: high knees
- minute 10: tricep extensions
- minute 11: butt kicks
- minute 12: standing dumbbell rows
- minute 13: shadowboxing
- minute 14: standing oblique stretches
- minute 15: high jumps
- minute 16: standing crunches
- minute 17: ski jumps
- minute 18: hammer curls
- minute 19: shallow jump lunges
- minute 20: alternating front and lateral raises
In this 20-minute workout, I tried to hit most of the major muscle groups and include a variety of different types of exercises. But you don’t have to. It’s totally fine to stick to the same set of five exercises that you repeat four times in the 20 minutes. Notice I also kept my workout upright, so I could see the show the whole time. That’s optional, too. But you get the idea: This is an easy way of fitting in a workout and maybe even giving you some extra incentive to do it!
*Yes, this could be done with any 20-minute show (or 40, if you want a tougher workout!).
