Whether you are coming back from an injury, new to working out, wanting to add more to your warmup, or looking for a quick workout that you can do at home before work, where should you start? After being asked these questions by a lot of patients, I came up with the 20-20 workout to cover all these bases.

What is the 20-20 workout?

The 20-20 workout is meant to be done in 10 minutes and is centered around each exercise being 20 repetitions. The reps can be done all at once or divided into multiple sets depending on your fitness level. The goal is to eventually be able to do 20 reps of each of the exercises without dividing it up. Between exercises, take about 10 seconds to recover.

It is also designed so that you do not need any equipment or a large space to get it done. You can do each exercise slow or fast. If you are doing it fast, make sure you are still in control of the motions. As you progress, you can add advanced options to the normal ones. If you are a more advanced exerciser, you may find that the 20-20 workout serve you better as a good warm-up option to supplement your current workouts.

The workout is divided into 3 areas or days: Legs, Core, & Upper body. Each section should take about 10 minutes. You can alternate sections each day or combine them together on the same day for a longer workout that covers more body parts.

The 20-20 Workout

Guidelines

20 reps
10-20 seconds between exercises
Maintain good posture, balance, & coordination

Daily Warm-up

High knees
Butt kicks
Elbow to opposite knee
Burpees

Legs

Normal
Squats
Lunges
Calf Raises
Bridges/Pelvic thrusts

Advanced
Squat Jumps
Lunge Jumps
Calf Raises: feet parallel, angled in, angled out, wide stance, and single leg
Bridges: both legs planted, right leg lifted, left leg lifted

Core

Normal
Crunches
Crossovers
Bicycles
Supermans
Roman Chairs
Planks (20 seconds)
Side planks (20 seconds)

Advanced
Crunches
Crossovers
Bicycles
Supermans
Roman Chairs
Planks (20 seconds)
Side planks (20 seconds)
Plank Dips: Touch one hip to the floor alternating sides
Side plank dips

Upper Body

Normal
Shoulder Circles: forwards & backwards
Arm Circles: big, small, forwards, backwards
Dips (bent legs)
Pushups

Advanced
Shoulder Circles: forwards & backwards
Arm Circles (slow): big, small, forwards, & backwards
Dips (straight legs)
Push-ups: shoulder width, narrow/diamond, wide
Push-up plus

How to make it easier:

1. Instead of 20 reps at a time, try multiple sets of fewer reps to add up to 20 (2 sets of 10 reps or 4 sets of 5 reps).
2. Increase the recovery time between sets to 15 or 20 seconds.
3. Temporarily remove exercises that have a sharp pain associated with it.

How to make it harder:

1. Rather than doing 1 set of 20 reps, try doing multiple sets.
2. Decrease the recovery time between exercises.
3. Do especially slow or especially quick reps.

To sum it all up:

The biggest hurdles for someone looking to add exercising to their daily routine are knowing where to start, staying motivated, and being consistent. The 20-20 workout is a good starting point for the beginner or someone that is coming back from an injury. It is easy to customize, no matter your fitness level. As you meet your fitness goals, you can morph the 20-20 workout into a thorough warm-up, your travel workout, a way to get your blood moving when you are short on time, or to supplement a more intense workout.