Your movement menu: 3 great self-guided workouts for wherever you are
Gym? Home? Outside somewhere? I've got you. (Plus: An amazing way to support a Black woman–owned new business!)
Hi friends! Last week was a freaking doozy in my house: I’m talking throwing my son’s birthday party, a heat wave, an urgent care visit with my daughter that resulted in a pneumonia diagnosis, a very nerve-wracking mayoral primary (but with, thank goodness, a fantastic outcome), kindergarten graduation, two New York Times deadlines, wrapping up my final projects for my long-time anchor client (more on that soon!). And then, on Wednesday night, an ER visit because my daughter (yes, the one with pneumonia!) tried to jump onto her bed but cracked her head open on the underside of the top bunk instead. She’s totally, totally fine, and you wouldn’t have any idea she had pneumonia or a busted-up scalp (unless she takes off her baseball cap and lets you see the spot where they applied glue and then tied her hair in a knot to close up the laceration). But oh my gosh! I feel like melting into a little puddle.
All this also meant I wasn’t able to film a new workout for you for today, and for that I apologize, but I also imagine you’ll understand. As we’ve discussed, sometimes you just have to phone it in, or even just give yourself grace to skip exercise altogether until a more reasonable season arrives.
Anyway, since I couldn’t shoot anything, I’m offering you something different this week: three great workouts you can do on your own, depending on your setup. As always, this is for YOU! Adjust these however you see fit. Like, if you’re doing the gym workout and a certain machine isn’t available, you can swap in something else, or just skip it! Evergreen reminder to ditch the all-or-nothing mindset. And take breaks, and drink water, and eat.
Next week, I’ll be back with a fresh strength training program for July! (Barring any unforeseen disasters, of course. Please, July, be kind.) Feel free to shout out any special requests for that, or for other workouts for next month.
On to the workouts:
#1: Gym workout
Warmup:
World’s greatest stretch. You know it, you love it.
Strength moves:
Aim for 2 or 3 sets of each exercise below. Find a weight that gets you close to failure after about 6–10 reps. You can do it as a circuit — one set of each exercise, all in a row, then repeat — or just finish your sets of one exercise before moving on to the next. Or divide it into a couple of circuits. Up to you! (Also, just to give credit where it’s due, this is basically a workout I’ve been doing lately that I found as part of a Muscle and Fitness program. It’s pretty good! You can add the calf raises in if you want, too.)
Leg curls (machine)
Leg press (machine)
Lat pulldowns (machine)
Tricep pushdowns (use the rope attachment for the cable machine)
Dumbbell chest press
Dumbbell overhead press
Dumbbell bicep curl
Crunches (go for 15–20)
Cooldown:
Spend a few minutes stretching! I’d do a hamstring stretch, a quad stretch, a tricep stretch, a chest opener, and a thread-the-needle here, but see what your body is craving.
#2: Dumbbell workout
Warmup:
You guessed it.
Circuit:
Take the Workout of the Week approach with this one — do the moves below in order as a circuit. Then rest, and do the circuit one or two more times. Choose weights that get you close to failure after about 6–10 reps.
Squat
Chest press (on a bench, ottoman, or ball if you have one; on the floor if not)
Deadlift or kickstand deadlift (especially if your weights are light)
Plank or mountain-climbers
Bent-over row
Cooldown:
Again, stretch however your body wants it! Always love to stretch quads after squats or lunges, hamstrings after deadlifts, and pecs after chest press. Some open-book rotations would also feel so nice after this one.
#3: Bodyweight workout
Warmup:
Obviously!
Circuit:
WOW approach here as well (see above). You can do one minute per exercise, or aim for 8–12 reps.
Lunge (alternate, or do all your reps on one leg and then all on the other)
Push-up
Single-leg glute bridge
Bent-over T
Bicycle crunch
Cooldown:
I’d go for quad stretch (of course), a figure-4 stretch, some cat-cow with a lot of freestyling (moving hips side to side, in a big circle, etc.), and whatever else feels good here.
Hope one of those floated your boat! On another note, just sharing a quick link to my testimonial form. If you’ve gotten something out of How to Move and would like to help others discover my work here (which is so important to helping make this project a sustainable part of my business), I’d be so grateful if you could fill this out. Or even just DM me with your thoughts! I share them periodically on Instagram and in other places. (And it means so much to me to hear from you all; you have no idea!)
One last thing before we go: LET’S HELP OPEN A BLACK WOMAN–OWNED FEMINIST BOOKSHOP! My incredible friend L'Oreal Thompson Payton is opening a bookstore in Evanston, Ill. — it’s called Zora’s Place! — and she needs our support to get the shop set up. It’s going to be amazing, and you are going to want to be able to brag that you helped make it happen, trust me. Join the campaign here.
Have a great week. And happy almost July! (Thank GOD.)
xo
Anna
Thank you so much for spreading the word, I appreciate you! 🫶🏾
Can we buy you a drink?! What a week!