Forget long workouts – I tried Hugh Jackman’s trainer's two-move full-body workout

Today is Quitters Day, when most give up on their New Year Resolutions, and that includes packing in the gym. According to PureGym, 1 in 6 people quit the gym because they don’t have enough time to train but, that’s often what people get wrong with fitness, you don’t have to train for hours on end, and a little bit of something is always better than nothing.

That’s why I like this workout from Strength Coach Beth Lewis, the woman responsible for getting Hugh Jackman into beast mode shape for Deadpool and Wolverine. It’s a simple ‘snack-sized’ two-move, full-body workout, that’ll help boost your metabolism and add movement into your day. What’s better, all it requires is a kettlebell.

I decided to try the workout for myself and, I must say, I was pretty impressed! Plus, it only took me around seven minutes so, before you give up on your fitness goals completely, you should give it a go.

Beth's workout

Beth’s workout consists of two exercises: a kettlebell swing and push-ups. The Kettlebell swing is a top-tier full-body compound exercise. It works the muscles in your posterior chain (so all the muscles on the back of your body), as well as your abdominal muscles, shoulders and quads. The humble push-up, as we all know, is one of the best upper body bodyweight exercises.

The workout follows a ladder structure, so you start with high reps and then decrease them as you work through the different sets. The reps structure for this workout was: 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. So, you’d start with 10 kettlebell swings, followed by 10 push-ups, then do the same for 8 reps, then 6, and so on…Once you’ve done one round, you rest for 90 seconds, then repeat.

“Workouts don’t have to be long or fancy for maintenance,” writes Beth on her Instagram post. “Make your workouts more “snack-sized” and keep the movements simple and accessible.”

How I found the workout

I decided to do this workout at the end of a pretty tough upper body session, not the smartest choice I’ve made. I used a 26kg kettlebell and, I’ll be honest, I found the first round of the ladder pretty easy to blast through, to the point where I almost convinced myself ‘This is going to be easy’. Always the famous last words, right?

Doing the ladder the second time around is where this workout catches you out. Again, the first couple of sets were manageable, but when I hit the round of four reps, the last few of my push-ups were feeling shaky. By the end, my backside felt fired up, which was needed having being sat at my laptop all day, and I had a fantastic little shoulder pump (if I do say so myself).

Would I do it again? Definitely! What I think is great about this workout (and as Beth rightly puts it on her Instagram post) the “options are endless”. That applies to exercises and equipment. If you don’t have a kettlebell, you can use a dumbbell. If you don’t have a dumbbell, fill up a rucksack, hold the handle and do rucksack swings. She also points out how you can swap the kettlebell swings for squats or lunges and, if you can't do push-ups, you can do them from your knees or against something.

Guaranteed, it’s not going to pack on a ton of muscle or give you Hulk strength, that’s not the purpose of it. It’s a ‘snack workout’, which is where you do short bursts of physical activity throughout the day that often don’t last longer than 5-10 minutes. That being said, if you find ways to progressively overload exercises (like popping a weight plate on your back for the push-ups if you find bodyweight ones too easy) it very well could. However, what it will definitely do, is keep you moving, give your metabolism a boost and maintain strength.