People often fall into two camps: strength training or cardio. The former is great for building muscle, burning fat and strengthening our joints. The latter is excellent at keeping our heart healthy and boosting our immune system. This high-intensity resistance training workout combines the two, so you can still build muscle whilst improving your cardiovascular fitness, giving you the best of both worlds.
High-intensity resistance training (HIRT) is a HIIT workout combined with strength training. Just like HIIT, the workout still focuses on high-intensity exercises, but resistance is also incorporated into it (like a kettlebell, resistance bands or even your bodyweight). It's a lot lower-impact than HIIT too, as HIRT often won't include high-impact exercises, like burpees or mountain climbers, but still gives you the benefits of weight training and cardio in one.
For this workout you'll need a pair of dumbbells and we suggest grabbing your gym water bottle, as anything high-intensity works up a bit of a sweat. You've got six exercises to work through, some using dumbbells, others just bodyweight. Do each exercise for 40 seconds, followed by a 20 seconds rest and complete four to five rounds in total. Here's your workout:
- Dumbbell squat with overhead alternating press
- Dumbbell deadlift
- Hand release push ups
- Dumbbell lateral squat
- Broad jump
- Jackknife
If you enjoyed this workout, then why not give this other HIRT workout a try next? It's another short and snappy one, and will only take you 30 minutes. If this is still a bit of a stretch though, then you can try this 15 minute full-body dumbbell workout instead. It's not high-intensity, so it'll completely slow things down, which your body will probably appreciate.
