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The 15 Minute AMRAP At Home Workout

The 15 Minute AMRAP At Home Workout

Training at home has many advantages, the main advantage being the amount of time you save. No changing rooms, no queueing for equipment, no forced small talk. Find a bit of space in your living room and get started.
This workout is going to be short and sharp. No longer than 15 minutes, using the AMRAP method. AMRAP stands for As Many Reps As Possible and is a form of training that involves training until fatigue. This is great for building endurance, and for increasing muscle hypertrophy.
However, it should not be overused. You do not want to be performing an AMRAP workout seven times per week. Once or twice will suffice, with less intense workouts interspersed with a lot of recovery time.

How to Perform an AMRAP Workout Correctly

The first thing you should ensure is that your form never drops below 90%. What does that mean? Well, the more tired you get, the harder it becomes to perform each rep with good form. Push ups become shallower, squats do not go to parallel, hips drop during planks.
You get the idea.
For years, people have pushed the idea that you should train to exhaustion, and this usually means performing half reps or bad reps rather than stopping.
That is not what we want! We want you to perform as many reps as you can, until your form begins to break down. At this point you must stop! It’s more like AMGRAP (As Many GOOD Reps As Possible).

The Exercises

The exercises you perform should suit your capabilities. Do not do plyometric push ups if you struggle to perform three good reps. Do not do barbell exercises (not that you are likely to have a barbell in your house) as this can be dangerous to do AMRAP with.
The exercises that we have picked for this workout are all ones that can be made more difficult or easier depending on your capabilities.
Push Ups
Place your hands flat on the floor, shoulder width apart and get on your tip toes. Raise your hips up so that there is a straight line from your shoulders to your heels. Keeping your elbows at a 45 degree angle from your sides, slowly lower your chest down towards the ground. Pause when it almost touches, and then drive back upwards to the starting position.
  • Make it Easier: Drop your knees to the floor and raise your feet up in the air, this halves the amount of bodyweight you need to lift. The closer to your torso you bring your knees, the easier to perform.
  • Make it Harder: You can perform plyometric push ups, where instead of just driving back up to the starting position, you put more effort in and push your hands off the ground.
Squat Jumps
Start off with feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart and toes pointed out slightly. Push your chest and pull your shoulder blades together. Squat down until your thighs are at least parallel to the ground. You can go further if you are mobile enough. Then explosively jump up in the air. Land, and go straight into another rep.
  • Make it Easier: Remove the jumping aspect and perform a regular bodyweight squat
  • Make it Harder: Hold a dumbbell in each hand to increase the resistance.
Body Get Ups
The simplest exercise to perform, but surprisingly tiring once you have managed a couple of reps. Stand fully upright with feet close together and hands by your sides. Drop to your knees and then lie flat on your front. Climb back up to the starting position. That is one rep.
  • Make it Easier: Perform at a slower pace, with more time resting on the floor
  • Make it Harder: Perform at a faster pace
Lunges
Ideally, this would be walking lunges, but this is not often possible to perform in your home (unless your home is worth millions). So, we are going to stick to static lunges instead. Remember, that you need to perform the same number of reps on each leg, so always start with your weak leg first!
Stand upright with feet together and hands by your sides. Take a large step forward with your weak foot and drop your back knee. Your front thigh should be parallel to the ground, and your back knee should almost be touching the ground. Pause, and then return the weak leg to the starting position. Your next rep should be with your other leg.
  • Make it Easier: Not Applicable, it does not get easier than this!
  • Make it Harder: Hold a dumbbell in each hand
Plank Get Ups
Start off in the push up position (mentioned earlier), to initiate the movement you need to drop one forearm to the floor, followed by the other. The moment the second forearm touches the ground, you should begin to raise the first back to the starting position. Squeeze your abs and glutes throughout the movement.
  • Make it Easier: Not Applicable, it does not get easier than this!
  • Make it Harder: Not Applicable, it does not get harder than this!

The Workout

Everything is performed for as many reps as possible (AMRAP). Take a three minute rest between each exercise. You may need to do several rounds to fill out 15 minutes.
  • Push Ups
  • Squat Jumps
  • Body Get Ups
  • Lunges
  • Plank Get Ups

Final Thoughts

As we said at the start, this is not the type of workout that you can do every single day without rest. If you can, then you are probably not really working until exhaustion! Less is definitely more when it comes to creating a training program. 1-2 times per week, with 1-2 low intensity workouts and a few rest days should see some good results.
Do this for up to 12 weeks, then take a 12 week break from AMRAP workouts altogether. After a while, you can start to add similar exercises to the program. Step Ups, Lateral Lunges, Burpees, Mountain Climbers etc …

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