The struggle is real: You crave the calorie-crushing results you get from high-intensity interval workouts, but you also love getting down with downward-facing dog. Enter Insta-famous trainer Alexis Novak, of Los Angeles, who created a solution for those “Which workout do I want?” dilemmas.
Meet: HIIT yoga. Instead of doing 30 minutes of HIIT work followed by 30 minutes of yoga, for example, Novak guides her clients (and nearly 20,000 Instagram followers) though hard cardio and strength-training bursts broken up by lengthening, relaxing cool-down-style moves.
But just because there’s an upward-facing dog on the other side of those burpees and mountain climbers doesn’t mean the workout is going to be easy. “Threading [yoga] with bursts of cardiovascular exercise revs up the caloric burn factor in half the time,” she says.
Novak recommends incorporating a HIIT/yoga-style workout into your regular routine three to four times per week—and she created this workout especially for Women’s Health. Get ready to sweat—and stretch!
1. Start in tabletop position, spine in neutral.
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2. Move through cat-cow pose for 10 to 15 breaths to warm the spine, breath, and body. (Tone up, beat stress, and feel great with Rodale's new With Yoga DVD!)
3. Lift the knees above the mat for floating table top, and do 10 to 15 shoulder taps with opposite hands.
4. Recover in downward-facing dog for five to 10 breaths.
5. Time for your first burst! Return to floating table top, and alternate tapping the knees to the elbows as fast as you can for 30 seconds.
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6. Recover in downward-facing dog and pedal out the feet, elongating the hamstrings, for 15 breaths.
7. Walk the feet forward to rag doll, releasing the lower back.
8. Here’s your first isometric hold: Bend the knees and lower into chair pose. Hold for 10 seconds.
9. Do a primal crawl forward to high plank position. Hold for 10 breaths.
10. Here’s your second burst: alternating mountain climbers for 30 seconds.
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11. Recover in downward dog for 15 seconds.
12. Step your right foot forward into a low lunge. This is your second isometric hold. Stay here for five seconds.
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13. Burst #3: Bring your left toe in to tap the back of the right heel as fast as you can for 30 seconds.
14. Recover in low lunge for 10 seconds.
15. Rise up to crescent lunge; hold for 10 seconds.
16. Tilt the chest forward and engage the core to form a 45-degree angle with the torso. For the fourth burst, tap the left toe to the back of the right ankle as fast as possible for 30 seconds.
17. Recover in crescent lunge for 10 seconds.
18. Here’s another burst: Jump switch the legs for 30 seconds, staying low and light on the landing.
19. Recover in downward dog for 15 seconds.
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20. Step the left leg forward into a low lunge position.
21. Lift to warrior II for a 30-second isometric hold and reverse your warrior to recover.
22. Transition to face the side of the mat and jump rope for 45 seconds. (If you don’t have a jump rope, fake it!)
23. Recover in downward dog for 15 seconds.
24. Keeping your hands on the ground and your hips toward the sky, do 30 seconds of downward-facing dog walking, running and hopping. Bend the right knee and then the left, alternating kicking the heels toward the glues, and pick up speed so you’re “running” with the support on your hands and core. To make it super challenging, keep the knees, ankles, and feet together, and pop the heels to the glutes like a slow donkey kick.
Repeat the entire sequence on the opposite side, and finish in child’s pose for a few minutes.
