How to make DIY workouts feel legit

Usually, we go to workout classes because they give more oomph than whatever’s going on at home. But whether broke or squeezing it in amidst life, a few crafty things can make our DIY workout similarly oomphy. We've gone through the trouble of pulling on our spandex, might as well feel like we really pushed ourselves, we're sore, we're making progress ✿

Slate

Talk about simple yet powerful—write it down! Plan what we’re gonna do, and then stick to it (including rest breaks*). Sounds easy, but that’s the funny/depressing thing about fitness, so much is mental, man! How many times when we exercise on our own do we crap out 75% of the way through, and say “eh that’s probably good...”? How often do we pay for a class just for the accountability—someone sees us, someone knows if we crap out, someone will call us out! One bit further is everything, it’s muscle building, it’s emotional release.

Trizzle Workout Design 101: Circuits (3-5 movements in a repeated journey). Mix of cardio, strength, mobility (e.g., jump rope, weighted lunge, gorilla crawl). I like 5 rounds, because I think it feels like this: lay of the land, set a bar, beat the bar, maintain, omg this so hard almost done keep pushing eeeuh! And that to me is a satisfying but not torturous or tedious sesh. (Warm up first, cool down after. Have more time? Do an Act 1 & II.)

Push through the wall, the hover state, the “eh that’s probably good” crap-out. Because we’re marking tallies on our slate, and that might as well be stone, and we know if we don’t complete what we set out to do!

Timer

*About those rest breaks… in a class, they’re hustling us from one thing to the next, we’re panting/heaving like yo can I catch my breath for a min??, and they’re all “lolno go go go” because it gives us more bang for our buck/hour. Keeping our heart rate elevated and performing under stress all means a more effective workout.

Yes indeed, rest is a variable for intensity—one that I think gets overlooked the most in DIY. Set our rest goals (e.g., 30 or 45s), and then try to only rest at the end of a round (vs. after every movement). I channel my kooky softball coach persona with a classic stopwatch but obvi your phone/watch works. To be clear, you don’t need to sprint through every movement, and you can certainly break up the reps as you get tired, but try to keep at it until that official rest break.

Like so: We hustle ourselves straight from cardio into strength, our heart pounding, our muscles quivering, and we say to ourselves “weight in my heels go go go” until we reach our goal post and hit our rest timer and we’re gulping water and oxygen and wat did 25s already go by, really feel like I could chill a little longer, time seems to be moving faster than it did first round, oh geez but there it is on my slate, so I guess BEEP BEEP BEEP here I go again! Yes, it is like the power hours of yore (time does speed up)—trust the timer not our own mind, man!

When resting for those intentional, regulated, precious breaks, try to keep bod moving (pace, dance) vs. collapsing in frozen pile. That comes at the very end :) 

Heavy-ish

I tried to keep these tips gear-free, because the whole point of a DIY workout is accessibility. That being said, lifting heavy enough that we’re challenging our neuromuscular system is something a trainer will consistently encourage us to do more than most of us intuitively reach for ourselves. This is not 2lb bb dbs (but also doesn’t have to be Olympic hundreds). This is like 15lb dumbbells, 12kg kettlebell, or our biggest cast iron pan. A trainer would say “Go heavier! You can handle it!” while we instinctively say “I don’t need that much, I’m already tired.” Go heavier. (Afraid of injury? Slow & simple, like carry, squat, or row. Record video of yourself and review your own form, start with just a few reps.)

Jump

Aerobics def got some things right and jumpin’ jumpin’ is one of them. In the biz, they call it “plyometric” (changing muscle length (vs. “isometric” same length (e.g., plank)). Thus, we might enjoy a good “plyo box,” but we can also just incorporate more jumping. Explosive movements like jump squats/lunges, burpees, skaters, etc., will give us that legit oomph guaranteed. If we dread when a trainer makes us do it in class, it’s probably good inspo. (Afraid of injury? Warm up properly, check knees over feet/ankles, land as silently as possible, start with just a few reps.)

Music

As someone who used to jog very slowly to This American Life before I learned how to exercise, this point is not to be overlooked! As we’ve discussed, this shit is mental, even if woo-woo motivational spincycle speeches aren’t our jam. Choosing music that we not only like, but that really gets us going, and playing it ideally on a speaker, will give us that class immersion experience, that lose-ourselves feel, where we really do go harder because our last rep rides a cresting wave of groove. (PS I’ve got a WorkOut playlist (& WarmUp & CoolDown) that might do the trick for ya.)

Slate, Timer, Heavy-ish, Jump, Music. Oomph.

And just like that, a legit workout can happen during a work lunch break, kid’s nap, or between laundry loads. We love trainers, but we also love empowerment.

How do you up your own intensity?