When it comes to speeding up weight loss with workouts, burning more calories should be your top priority. The good news is that in just 30 minutes or less, three times per week, you can ramp up your body’s metabolism and calorie burn while improving your aerobic fitness and strength. We’ve put together the ultimate bodyweight workout to lose 10 pounds in one month. This routine focuses on lower-body exercises that use the largest muscle groups, thus burning the most overall calories.
To keep things simple for you, this bodyweight routine includes just a few exercises. However, you can increase the intensity with weight, add speed and explosiveness, or bump up the number of reps or total rounds of the circuit. Combined with science-backed ways to lose belly fat and long-term healthy eating habits, this fitness regimen is a surefire way to make losing 10 pounds in one month a realistic goal—as long as you can put forth the effort!
For this bodyweight workout, perform the first two exercises for 10 to 20 reps. For the sprints, complete the prescribed amount of yards. Work up to five or more total rounds for maximum calorie burn. Aim to complete the workout a minimum of two times per week, with three times being optimal. And, of course, take 24 to 48 hours of recovery time between workouts.
Are you ready to lose 10 pounds in one month? Let’s dive into this productive bodyweight workout.
1. Bodyweight Squats
No good circuit routine is complete without some serious lower-body exercises. The squat reigns supreme when blasting your glutes, quads, and hamstrings while kicking your calorie burn into high gear.
- Begin standing with your feet wider than hip-width apart and your toes slightly turned out.
- Bend at the knees and hip as you stick your hips backward and lower toward the floor.
- When the tops of your thighs are parallel to the ground, drive through both feet to return to the standing position.
- Repeat for target repetitions.
2. Lunges
Lunges are another killer lower-body exercise. This movement incorporates balance elements and improves lower-body mobility while hitting all the good muscles below your waistline.
- Begin standing with your feet hip-width apart.
- Take a big step forward with your working leg.
- After you step, lower your hips by focusing on bringing your back knee toward the floor by bending at the knee.
- When your knee is an inch or two above the floor, drive through your front foot to return to the starting position.
- Step all the way back to standing, or keep your forward foot in place and focus on just the up and down.
- Repeat on one side for target repetitions, switch sides, and repeat.
3. Sprints
Sprints are an absolute calorie-incinerating form of exercise that improves lower-body explosiveness, athleticism, muscularity, and the functional ability to quickly get from point A to point B on foot. The intensity to count as a “sprint” will vary based on your fitness level. A brisk walk might be sufficiently intense to drive your heart rate to its upper limits. Other individuals may require an all-out sprint, pushing maximum velocity to hit the “sprint intensity.” You’ll know you are at the right intensity if you are out of breath and feeling the burn after each sprint.
- Stand at the beginning of an open runway between 40 yards and 100 yards.
- Begin each sprint by explosively stepping forward.
- With each step, focus on driving your front foot directly into the ground and then exploding with your hips, quads, and calves as you continue sprinting forward.
- Upon reaching the finish line, decelerate slowly by bending at your knees and “pushing the ground away” as you take 5 to 10 deceleration steps.
- Do not attempt to suddenly stop, and avoid locking your knees when decelerating.
- Rest for 20 to 60 seconds between sprints. More rest means higher output on each sprint but also increases the duration of the workout.
- Repeat for 5 to 10 sprints.
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Tyler Read, BSc, CPT