Pinterest Week - Monday: The Squat Gauntlet

The Pin

Go ahead and let the name of this workout intimidate you. It intimidated me when I found it! But it also excited me when I looked at it, because it was not another one of those sissy  20-minute "workouts" I usually see on Pinterest that involve 10 jumping jacks, 10 crunches, and then 10 minutes jogging on the treadmill to cool down (Seriously?? That's not even hard enough to be my warm-up!). This workout has substance. This workout is for people who are serious about their bodies and are looking for a challenge. Do this workout if you're looking for that "Hulk mad!" feeling. Haha

The Squat Gauntlet took me 1 hour to finish, but at the end I felt as shredded as if I had been at it for 2. I had planned to do 30 minutes of a cardio cool down afterward, but my body was so spent that I only had 5 minutes left in me. My shirt was TOTALLY soaked through... kind of gross... but so satisfying! I thought about taking a picture for some evidence... but decided against it. As I said... gross.

So without further ado, here is the pin from which I adapted this workout. I did have to make a couple of changes, due to the equipment I had available.

The Squat Gauntlet

Here are the changes I made:
1. Wall ball squat: instead of doing bodyweight only, I held a 20 lb dumbbell in each hand (for a total of 40 extra lbs.) to make it more advanced, and I did 3 sets instead of just 2.
2. I could not find my gym's BOSU ball, so I substituted another balance-oriented move. It wasn't a squat though. I did 3 sets of one-legged deadlifts with a 30 lb dumbbell, because I really wanted to bring focus to the glutes.

Quick tip that I cannot stress enough: When you're working you glutes (or any muscle group, for that matter), remember that perfect form > weight/reps. And ALWAYS give your glutes an extra squeeze at the top of each move. Prepare to sweat and have jelly-legs after doing this workout.

Enjoy!