Holiday Training Guide

If you’re going away over the Christmas / New Year period or just taking a break from your regular training, here are some great Tabata combinations that can be done anywhere, and require no equipment.

If you want to add some variety, you can grab a good quality skipping rope for around $12 from Big W. Otherwise, side jumps over a line will suffice. If you want to up the ante, try double unders with the skipping rope. It’s only 20 seconds after all!

While traditional Tabata is 8 x 20 second sets of the same exercise with a 10 second rest in between, I think doing combinations are far more interesting to do, and still have a great conditioning effect.

I have done these up in a Push, Pull/Cardio, Leg, Core progressive combo to ensure you’re getting a balanced training session each time. Finding something to do a pull up or chin up on is the only limiting factor, so I have left those circuits to last.

There are plenty of good Tabata phone apps available so you don’t have to constantly look at the clock. I use Tabata Pro if you want hear something you are familiar with. It costs $3.99 so will be the cheapest holiday trainer you will ever get.

There are 7 different combos here that get progressively harder, so there’ll be plenty of different angles to work with, ensuring you hit all your muscles, and your lungs won’t miss out either.

Try doing 6 of these sets with a 1 minute break and you’ll see it will not miss you at all. Do them circuit style, so you end up doing 2 sets of each in a 4 minute Tabata. Oh yes, and don’t forget to enjoy yourself!

1. Single Leg Push Up, Y Ups, Back Lunge, Plank with Alternate Foot Tap

2. Stagger Push Ups, 10m Lateral Shuttles, Jackknife, Box/Step Jumps

3. Dips, Jump Chin Ups, Skipping or Side Jumps, Bicycle crunch

4. Incline Push Up (feet elevated), Burpees, Skater Lunge, Reverse Crunch

5. Push Up to Plank, Jump Lunges, Side Plank, Shuttles

6. Clap Push Up, Fast Feet Shuffles, Squat Jumps, Mountain Climbers

7. Spiderman Tap, Single Leg Deadlift, Surrenders, Russian Twist

If you’re not sure of any of the exercises, enter them into YouTube and there is a bank of videos there so you make sure you have the correct form.

Merry Christmas from the team at Body Language!