HIIT Workouts at Home: 5 Best Moves to Try

HIIT Workouts at home that you must try. (Photo via Gabin Vallet/Unsplash)
HIIT Workouts at home that you must try. (Photo via Gabin Vallet/Unsplash)

HIIT workouts at home are an excellent way of ensuring you’re getting your daily workout without going to the gym.

It so happens that when you’re focusing on exercises, it doesn’t always have to be loaded with machines and equipment. You can do bodyweight exercises and reap similar benefits. In fact, a full body HIIT workout is going to have a similar after-effect to resistance training.

Before getting into the HIIT exercises list that you can try at home, you need to understand what they are.


What is HIIT?

HIIT stands for high intensity interval training. The idea of this type of training is to raise your metabolism, allowing it to become slightly steady before raising it again.

To achieve that, you need to do an exercise at 100% effort for 30 seconds followed by a period of rest (approximately 20 seconds) or another exercise/same exercise with 20% effort for 20 seconds.

The high paced and slow paced efforts together make one round. For a HIIT workout to be impactful, you need to do at least 6-8 rounds and keep adding rounds as your endurance and stamina improves.


Must-try HIIT workouts at home

HIIT workouts can improve endurance and performance. (Photo by Gabin Vallet on Unsplash)
HIIT workouts can improve endurance and performance. (Photo by Gabin Vallet on Unsplash)

The following are the HIIT workouts at home that has the moves you must try at home.


1) Burpee

To do burpees:

  • Stand straight with your hands by your side.
  • Take a small jump, and extend your arms upwards.
  • Softly land on the floor, and keep your palms on the floor.
  • Extend your legs outwards, and move to a push-up position.
  • Do one push-up, and bring your legs inwards.
  • Go back to the starting position with a jump to do the second rep.
  • You should aim to do as much as possible with 30-40 seconds, and rest for the next 20 seconds.

2) Jumping jack

To do jumping jacks:

  • Stand with your hands by your side.
  • Take a jump, and move to a wider stance while the arms move overhead from the sides.
  • Jump a second time, and come back to the starting position.
  • Repeat the jumps continuously, and remember that one round is complete when you return to the starting position with a second jump.

3) Mountain climber

Mountain climbers can strengthen the core muscles. (Photo by James Barr on Unsplash)
Mountain climbers can strengthen the core muscles. (Photo by James Barr on Unsplash)

To do mountain climbers:

  • Go into a push-up position.
  • Bring your right knee inwards while your left leg remains extended outwards.
  • While moving your right leg outwards, bring your left knee inwards.
  • Do this movement as many times as possible in 30 seconds before resting for 20 seconds.

4) Jump rope

Jump ropes are a popular HIIT workout at home.

If you have access to a jump rope, you should try to incorporate the HIIT principle to the sessions. Do the exercise for 30 to 40 seconds at 100% effort before resting. The primary idea is to ensure that the heart rate rises.


5) Circuit training

Circuit training is another form of training where you focus on a number of exercises consecutively. Once you’ve completed all the exercises, it’s counted as one round.

You can combine the first four on the HIIT exercises list above, and create a routine for your HIIT workouts at home. Once you complete one round, rest for 30-40 seconds before starting round two.


Bottom Line

HIIT Workouts can trigger weight loss by burning excess calories. (Photo by Monika Kabise on Unsplash)
HIIT Workouts can trigger weight loss by burning excess calories. (Photo by Monika Kabise on Unsplash)

HIIT workouts at home are meant to trigger weight loss by burning excess calories. However, HIIT is exceptionally beneficial if you want to become stronger and improve performance as well.

It must be kept in mind that you should not do HIIT every day. It so happens that due to the rise and fall of the heart rate, the calories you burn aren’t restricted to the session but extends beyond. Hence, it’s better to keep a gap of a day or two between your HIIT sessions.

Finally, whether you’re doing a full body HIIT workout or resistance training or HIIT workouts at home, it’s mandatory to give your body the rest it needs. If you don’t allow your muscles to rest and recover, you won’t be able to see the results you desire.

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