1) 12 HIIT Workout Exercises To Prepare Your Body For The Cold Season
As we get closer to the winter months, it only makes sense to brace yourself for the winter chills. Sure, our body warmers will keep you warm and cozy, but a little bit of high intensity exercise would only be the cherry on top of the cake. So to make your lives smoother, here’s a list of the 12 best HIIT workout exercises to prepare your body for the cold season.
12 Best HIIT Workout Exercises To Prepare Your Body For The Cold Season
1. Push-Ups
2. Squat With Weights
3. Burpees (with or without push-ups)
4. Mountain Climbers
5. Jumping Jacks
6. Russian Twists
7. Jump Squats
8. High To Low Plank
9. Forward And Lateral Lunges
10. Plank Jacks
11. Kettlebell Swing
12. High Knees
1. Push-Ups
What a popular, helpful, and low-maintenance student is to high school, push-ups are to exercise. Just spread your legs straight and place your hands on the floor (aligning with your shoulders) and push your chest toward the ground. Now, keep your abdomen tight and push yourself against the ground and come back to the initial position. No fuss, right? Is your body not cooperating with you to pull off push-ups? Tweak the method by touching your knee to the ground like your hands and following the same method as above.
Duration: Min. 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
2. Squat With Weights
Stand with your feet hip-width apart, with dumbbells in each hand. Now sit on an imaginary chair, holding the dumbbells in your hands, and then stand back up and raise the dumbbells up in the sky.
Duration: Min. 30 to 60 seconds
Equipment Required: None
3. Burpees (With Or Without Push-Ups)
Jump with your hands towards the sky, like it’s reaching for a volleyball pass, then squat and touch your hands to the ground. Next, take the support of your hands, push your legs behind and come to a plank position. Once you’re in a plank position, it’s up to you whether you want to do a push-up or not. If you don’t want to do plain push-ups, then you can combine them with burpees.
From the plank position, you go back to squatting and then jumping. Keep repeating this on a loop till the sweat starts breaking and voila! You have now mastered burpees.
Duration: Min. 20 to 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
4. Mountain Climbers
Imagine you’re climbing a really steep mountain. Picture yourself in a plank position? Yes, that’s how it goes! Just bring one of your knees towards your chest and return the leg back to the starting position. Do this for both legs simultaneously like you’re running up that hill, and that’s it.
Duration: Min. 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
5. Jumping Jacks
Another one of the basic exercises that doubles up as a warm-up exercise too. For jumping jacks, you need to stand with your feet sharing the same width as your shoulders. Now, jump with your hands up and land with your feet apart. Then jump again and come back to the original position
Duration: Min. 30 to 40 seconds
Equipment Required: None
6. Russian Twists
To start things off, just sit down with your legs stretched out on your workout mat. Now lean your shoulders back to 45 degrees, bend your knees to your chest, and raise your feet off the ground. You need to form a ‘V’ shape with your torso and thighs. Once you have reached this position, cross your hands close to your chest and twist your torso from left to right.
You can choose to do these exercises with the help of some weights if you feel ambitious and want to crank things up. So each time you twist, you touch the weight to the ground on each side. Don’t have weights at home? Fret not and just use filled water bottles.
Duration: Min. 30 to 40 seconds
Equipment Required: Dumbbells (Optional)
7. Jump Squats
Stand with your feet apart, sharing the same distance as your shoulders. Keep your hand in a clasp in front of your chest like you’re a kung fu master. Now do a squat and powerfully jump upwards with your hands down on the sides, and land back to the squat position. Repeat these jump squats for a few seconds and get your body winter ready.
Duration: Min. 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
8. High To Low Plank
Does your flex involve placing your forearms on the ground with your abdomen, back, and legs, straight and above the ground? Well, then you must’ve mastered the high-to-low plank.
All you have to do is take a high plank position, touch your forearm to the ground (one hand at a time), and come to a low plank position. And then, again touch your hand to the ground (one hand at a time) and come back to the starting position. Continue switching from high plank to low and vice versa.
So, high to low plank is all about using your arm strength while keeping your foot steady and your back and abdominal muscles tight.
Duration: Min. 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
9. Lateral Lunges
Does your body need you to make amends? Then you have to bend to each side, one leg at a time. But before that, you need to be standing with your legs spread out. If you start with a lunge on your left leg, then stand back up and then do a lunge on your right leg, and keep repeating.
Duration: Min. 30 seconds
Equipment Required: None
10. Plank Jacks
You should know the drill by now. So take your high plank position, jump both your feet out wide, and then back together as in the initial position. Keep repeating this till your muscles are neither rigid nor your body frigid. As an added benefit, you also end up strengthening your core.
Duration: Min. 10 to 20 seconds
Equipment Required: None
11. Kettlebell Swing
It might not be possible to swing every bad guy in your story like they do in movies, but you can surely swing a kettlebell and be your own hero! Stand with your legs apart, stretch your arms downwards holding a kettlebell and keep your chest wide. Now swing the kettlebell up high (height of your chest), and then swing it back down through the gap between your thighs. Imagine the kettlebell to be your rival and keep swinging it until your body breaks a sweat and the hero in you feels content.
Duration: Min. 20 seconds
Equipment Required: Kettlebell
12. High Knees
Imagine you’re running, but you’re not actually moving from the place where you started! That’s exactly what high knees feel like, except here you’re running with your knees reaching the height of your chest. So keep running with your knees high and hop your way out of this cold season!
Duration: Min. 30 seconds.
Equipment Required: None
Summing Up
With these 12 Best HIIT workout exercises to prepare your body for the cold season, you get the benefit of improving your fitness levels too. Of course, consistency is key and what’s important is knowing your own limits. Now that you know of these exercises, get your workout clothes and a bottle of water ready to beat the cold winters.
FAQs
What Are The 4 Types Of Hiit Exercises?
HIIT workouts can be divided into 4 types - full body HIIT, cardio HIIT, HIIT for runners, and HIIT with weights.
What Is The Best Exercise To Do In Winter?
Wearing winter clothes and using body warmers keep you warm, but when you exercise, your muscles convert stored energy into heat energy, causing your body to warm up. Walking and running are always great options to deal with the winter. But if you don’t want to deal with the cold winter breeze, you can also try a HIIT workout at home to keep you warm during the cold season, especially if you live in extremely cold regions.
Does HIIT Improve Circulation?
Yes, absolutely. HIIT helps to improve blood flow and dilation in the human body. In fact, it also helps to manage glucose levels, especially for people who have type 2 diabetes.
How Long Should A HIIT Workout Be?
The duration of HIIT can range anywhere between 30 to 60 minutes, this includes your warm-up and cool-down session.
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