The 20 minute workout
5 Elements gym members have several names for the 20 minute workout that follows our core strength session every Tuesday and Thursday including ‘Strength and Conditioning, Bootcamp, the difficult bit and several others involving expletives! High intensity, short duration training is a real cornerstone of 5 Elements Fitness. As such I wanted to explain a little more about why we train so hard for a relatively small amount of time. Check out some of our workouts here:
Intense Training is Fun:
First and foremost, training like this is great fun and leaves you walking on air afterwards. A 5E session can be the ‘high’ point of an otherwise dreary workday or a springboard to an even more awesome weekend. We would not train this hard if it wasn’t a catalyst for feeling great! In addition, there is a great sense of camaraderie that flows from completing a tough session with fellow gym members.
Constant Workout Variation:
I have tried a range of training regimes/routines and one thing I am absolutely sure of is that doing the same thing over and over every week is boring. Furthermore, it can feel like I get habituated to the routine physically, my body knows what’s coming and I get less out of the workout. Use more muscles, enjoy the challenge of constant variation and come to training with that nervous tingly feeling you get when you have no idea what is in store for you!
Time Poor/Training Rich
These workouts are a solution to the ‘time-poor’ problem or a answer to the often dropped ‘I don’t have time to train’ quote. Whilst our classes run for an hour (5PM to 6PM) people can’t always get there due to work constraints. You are quite welcome to come in time for 530 and you will get a great workout! In fact our 20 min high intensity workouts were born out of a desire to train hard every day within the life parameters of work and having a family. In the beginning we used to smash out 20 minute bootcamps in the park under a tree for shelter….Now we have a roof that (mostly) keeps us dry.
Bodyweight Only Workouts:
We are all responsible for our own meat. Cutting out external machines and free weights is great not only from a logistics/faff perspective, but we think it also greatly reduces injury risk. In addition, ‘Bodyweight Only’ also lets you take 5E on the road with you (for many of our workouts you only need a 3 m2 area and a spare 20 minutes). Most importantly of all though it does tend to cut out excuses.
Competing with yourself (and others):
Even without realising it, minutes are shaved off routines just by having a group of people training as hard as they can. At 5 Elements we take this a little further with our Club Record Wall that allows people to see where they stack up in the deck, even if the current champ isn’t there to defend their belt! This is all totally voluntary and done in the best possible humour. However, having records and a little competitive streak is a great way to push yourself and encourages good form on the various exercises (if you are claiming a push up record, you can can expect other 5E members to be scrutinising your form!)
I am certainly not claiming to have invented the high intensity 20 minute workout. In particular I have been greatly inspired by the approach of hard core Cross-Fitters and other similarly dedicated training regimes as well as landmark studies such as that done by Tabatta. I strongly advocate for training in a high intensity, fun, constantly varied way. I am enjoying the process of inventing new combinations that are right on the edge of what I think I can deal with and then getting the whole team to smash it out.
Our 5 Elements workouts can be found here.