20 Minute Fitness Solution - recommendation

Although I've mentioned this site before, I just wanted to give a shout out to Joel's excellent blog The 20 Minute Fitness Solution.

Everyday, Joel posts a 20 minute workout, requiring little or no equipment to complete. He explains the purpose of the workouts:

The Twenty Minute Fitness Solution is a general physical preparation program using bodyweight exercises and requiring just twenty minutes per day. It is a total fitness system, broad enough to be used as a stand alone exercise program but concise enough to be used as a complement to sports specific training. The TMFS requires little or no equipment, and the exercises are simple to learn and perform safely. It is a fitness routine you can take with you anywhere, and with a daily commitment of only twenty minutes, even the busiest individual can find time to improve his health and fitness.


The TMFS develops general physical preparedness (GPP), but GPP for what? The TMFS won’t make you a world champion athlete, but it can help you develop real world strength and conditioning to meet the physical demands of life and sport. The system is oriented around functional fitness. Of course, functional fitness is a term being used frequently today, but it is rarely defined with precision. To develop functional fitness, one must first clarify what function he seeks to be fit enough to perform! Our use of the term functional fitness encompasses the general physical strength and endurance to meet the needs of daily life and advanced courses of athletic training.

This is a FREE programme, scaled for beginners or the more advanced and it full of excellent ideas.

Here are some example workouts:

Thursday 14 August 2008: 30/90 SPRINTS

The signature sprint workout...

30/90 SPRINTS

Advanced:

Run 5 minutes
Repeat five times:
Sprint 30 seconds
Recover 90 seconds
Run 5 minutes

Intermediate:

Run-walk 5 minutes
Repeat five times:
Sprint 20-30 seconds
Recover 90-100 seconds
Run-walk 5 minutes

Basic:

Powerwalk 5 minutes
Repeat five times:
Sprint 15-20 seconds
Recover 100-105 seconds
Powerwalk 5 minutes

Tuesday 5 August 2008: J-SQ + BW-SQ #2

JUMP SQUATS + BODYWEIGHT SQUATS #2

Complete as many rounds as possible in twenty minutes.

Advanced - Intermediate:

A set of Squat Jumps
(e.g. Box Jumps, Hurdle Jumps, Star Jumps, Half-Squat Jumps, etc.)
A set of Bodyweight Squats
(e.g. Deep Knee Bends, Half Squats, Hindu Squats, Sumo Squats, Pistols, etc.)

If you are unaccustomed to plyometric training, perform the Basic WOD.

Basic:

A set of Half Squats
A set of Lunges
A set of Calf Raises
A set of Jumping Jacks


Check out more at The 20 Minute Fitness Solution