The ANIMAL Workout!

“Wow!” you must be thinking.  “Dan must have written this after hammering down a few too many energy drinks.” 

Actually, I’m in my living room, sitting here in my pajamas having just finished a delicious breakfast of a toasted egg and cheese sandwich with an extra fried egg on the side.  Yummy! … Anyway, this is going to be a fun article; one that’ll give you something new and exciting to try out the next time you workout.

I was sitting around one day, just kind of brainstorming for a new workout when an idea popped into my head, “What if I designed a workout where people acted like animals?” 

Now you may be thinking that I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have, but the BIG discovery I’ve found through my years of study and training is that people are more likely to exercise if it’s fun! … Duh. 

Bear with me for a second.  How do we normally have fun working out?  Well, if you’re like me, it’s when we work out with a friend or do something different than we’re used to. 

I started to notice something when working with my clients.  I noticed that my clients had the most fun and worked the hardest when I turned their workouts into a game or did off-the-wall exercises with them.  They enjoyed breaking away from the basic rows and pushups, and whatever else.  The fun, but still challenging, workouts were the ones that were different than the norm.

I thought to myself, “What’s a workout that’s fun, challenging, but can still be done away from the gym.” 

If you’re like my clients, you’re probably very busy; you don’t always have time to make it to the gym.  The great thing about this workout … you don’t have to be in the gym for it to work!

Here’s what you do:

Start by thinking of some of your favorite animals; not bees and butterflies, but animals that have a quality related to fitness. (I guess trying to fly like a bee or butterfly would be pretty physically demanding.)

On my list, I have:

Fly like a butterfly.  Sting like a bee … I mean:

Horse – Horses pull people in wagons, so I’ll pull someone.  (What I’ve done in the past with this one is wrapped resistance bands or a speed harness around someone’s waist and had them sprint with me holding onto the bands.  The idea is they have to sprint ahead and pull me because the more I pull on the bands, the harder it is for them to keep pulling me forward.  You can also face someone and pull them while locking hands and backpedalling.)  If I want to work my back, I’ll pull something with my arms instead.

Elephant – Elephants are very strong and can carry all kinds of things on their backs, so I’ll either do pushups or walk a designated length while giving someone a piggyback ride.  (If I’m really feeling good, I may even do pushups with someone on my back.)

Cheetah – This is an obvious one; cheetahs are very fast for short distances, so I’ll do 50-meter sprints.

Leopard – Leopards are very strong and can carry their food into trees, so I’ll do chin-ups.  (If I want to add a little extra to the exercise, I might try adding ankle weights.)

Monkey – Monkeys climb trees, so I’ll climb a rope or a pole.

Frog – Frogs can jump, so I’ll do frog hops.  (This is my personal favorite because it’s unbelievably tough but a lot of fun.)

Tiger – Just like in the circus, tigers can leap up very high, so I’ll do box jumps.

Mule – Mules are always carrying sacks of things on their sides, so I’ll do a farmer’s walk.  (A farmer’s walk is walking while holding something heavy in each hand.  An example would be carrying a bucket of water in each hand while walking 50 meters.)

These are just exercises I’ve thought of for myself; for some, this may sound way too hard.  For others, it may be way too easy.  You really can choose whatever you want to do.  Maybe you want to associate animals with pushups, jumping jacks, running in place, and crunches?  Be creative!

Now here’s the fun part.  What you do is tear up some pieces of paper and write down one animal on each piece.  Next, throw all the pieces of paper into a hat.  When you decide to do the workout, you pull out a piece of paper, and whatever animal is written down on that paper, you do that exercise.  After you’re done, pull out another piece.  I’d probably only pull out 5 or 6 animals because if you do this intensely enough, you’ll be exhausted after that many exercises.

I purposely didn’t assign sets and reps with each animal because this workout is purely about working hard while making it fun and interesting.  Go with how you feel; if you feel one set of 5, 50-meter sprints is plenty for the cheetah exercise, then stop there.  If you don’t feel like it was hard enough, then do more; it’s all up to how you feel for this workout.

Hopefully you find this a nice change to your workout routine.  Try it with a friend; it’ll be even more fun if you have someone to laugh with while doing this.

I’d love to hear how this goes when you try it out, so feel free to leave a comment.

Comments

[Dan]

I'm going to be doing some work with the local schools coming up, and I never even thought of using it with them. That's a great idea! Thanks for the input Wesley!

[Wesley]

Some good ideas here to use in our school to help kids have more fun while exercising. Thanks Dan!