BB Well Workout 1: AMRAP

It’s Day 2 of the BB Well Challenge, and it’s time to reveal the first of nine Tuesday/Thursday 8-minute workouts that I’ll gift you throughout the month of January 2022. This one only requires a set of medium-sized dumbbells. Much of the challenge in this non-stop workout comes from the resistance of your own body weight.

This circuit, with a prescribed number of repetitions of a series of exercises at your own pace, is called an "AMRAP." We can credit CrossFit for creating a language that has mainstream fitness folks saying “what?”

Case in point: an AMRAP.

Until about a decade ago, I thought it sounded more like a spa service than a workout.

Turns out, “AMRAP” is an acronym for “as many rounds as possible.” The intention of this type of workout is bettering your best. The competition doesn’t involve taking down other people. You’re taking down the clock. Tick tock, tick tock. It’s you vs. each passing second. Game on!

AMRAPs can work specific muscle groups, or tax you all over. This one will challenge you all over. It will especially work the shoulders! Even as a StrongFirst fitness professional, my body was toast after 8-minutes! A word to the wise: go on the low end of what you consider to be "medium" dumbbells.

AMRAP: Set a clock for 8:00. Perform 10 repetitions of each of the following 4 exercises. No rest requirement between circuits, but if you need to program in a rest, you determine your appropriate rest length– maybe 5-10-seconds (if you follow along with the video, there are no rests). Repeat until time runs out. Expect to complete approx 5 rounds in this amount of time.

Exercise 1: Front Squats

Step 1: Stand upright and hold a dumbbell in each hand. Bend your elbows, and rack the dumbbells in front of your shoulders. Spread your legs slightly wider than hips-width apart and turn your toes out (doing so will give your hips more range in the squat).

Step 2: Bend your knees and hips. Track your knees in the same direction that your toes are facing. Drop your booty. Squat as low as you can without rounding your back, or feeling pain in knees, hips, or lower back.

Hold momentarily at the bottom then squeeze your buns and rise to the top!

Exercise 2: Push-Ups

Step1: Place your hands slightly wider than the dumbbells with your body in plank or modified plank position (modified plank means on your knees)

Step 2: Bend your elbow and drop your chest toward the ground.

Hold momentarily at the bottom then extend your elbows to rise to the top. Maintain alignment of shoulder-to hip-to ankle (or shoulder-to hip-to knee if you’re modifying) throughout the range.

Exercise 3: Mountain Climbers

Step 1: Grip the floor with your toes and hold your hands on top of dumbbells on the floor (for neutral wrists) in “plank.” Dumbbells should be positioned directly under your shoulders. Bend one knee and bring it in toward your belly. Safety Note: Do not use round dumbbells that may roll out from under you!

Step 2: Hold momentarily, feel your core fire, then switch legs!

Count right knee in then left knee in as 1 rep, total! (I like to count like this: “1, and, 2, and, 3, and…”)

Exercise 4: Thrusters

Step 1: Stand upright and hold a dumbbell in each hand. Bend your elbows, and rack the dumbbells in front of your shoulders.

Step 2: Squat down. Track your knees in line with your toes. Maintain a tight core. Look straight ahead.

Step 3: Explode up from your squat. Recruit legs, glute, and shoulder strength to propel (“thrust”) the dumbbells straight up, overhead. Lift your body out of the squat with such power that your heels raise up off the ground. Maintain complete control of the weight overhead at the top. Align wrist over elbow over shoulder, over hip, knee, and ankle!

Safely return to starting position.

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