5 Indoor Small Space Workouts

This time of year in Australia the weather is getting cold and wet which means if you have an outdoor bootcamp you are probably going to find yourself indoors and undercover more often without as much space at your disposal.

(Those of you in the Northern Hemisphere might want to bookmark this to use in November.)

If you have limited indoor space, try these five great ideas for your campers, and get them working hard before they know what has hit them!

1. Full Body Trifecta

Equipment: Dumbbells, Mats & Cones
Designer: Karen Drozdowski
Set up: 

• ROW 1: Weights of choice depending on exercise
• ROW 2: mats
• ROW 3: cones

Warm Up

3- 5 min of dynamic exercises.

Main Drill

Clients start at any station where they will do each exercise for  50 seconds. They have 10 seconds to get to the next station which should be about 10 yards away. Once they complete all 3 stations in their row they move onto the next row. Give a 1 minute rest every 3 rounds. Each circuit should last about 17 minutes Repeat circuit 2-3 times.

For example, the first 2 rounds might look like this: Thrusters, Scissors, Squat Jacks, Kick backs, Flutter Kicks, Mountain Climbers.

ROW 1 Exercises (dumbbells):

1. Squat Thrusters
2. Tricep Kick Backs
3. Walking Lunges w/ DBs
4. Hammer Curls
5. DB or KB Swings

ROW 2 Exercises (AB work):

1. Scissors
2. Flutter Kicks
3. Coffin Sit ups
4. Bicycles
5. Plank

ROW 3 Exercises (body weight)

1. Squat Jacks
2. Mountain Climbers
3. Split Lunges-prisoner style
4. Burpees w/ pushup and tuck jump
5. Surfer Turns

Finisher

End with 4 minutes of:

• 20 yard sprint then turn around
• 10 yard bear crawl
• 10 yard broad jumps

2. Waste Time

P.S. This work out may seem complicated at first glance, but read it a couple of times. It’s a really great workout and simple for clients to follow once they get started.

Time: 60 minutes
Equipment needed: Cones, Jump Ropes, Dumbbells
Designer: Andrea Garcia

This is a partner ladder or pyramid workout. Let your folks pick their own partners, similar fitness levels works well.

Warm Up

For a warm up I usually run the group through some plyometric moves, like jog in place for 10 sec, 10 but kickers, 10 high knees, 10 jumping jacks, 10 jump squats, 10 skaters, 10 push-ups, 10 plank jacks, 10 reverse plank jacks.

Partner Circuit

I divide the basket ball court in half, using cones or some other way to mark off the halves. One half of the court belongs to the partner who is wasting time (cardio related exercises) while the other partner is on the other half doing a station or stations pyramid or ladder style.

There are 4 different ways to waste time on the designated half of the BB court. On the other site there are 7 stations (any strength exercise will work, I like compound or full body ones) to do the ladder/pyramid. It’s the partner that’s on the station side doing the ladder/pyramid piece that determines when partners switch.

The idea is partner A does one station, while partner B wastes time. The after partner A is done with one station, they switch with partner B and partner B does one station while partner A wastes time.

Then they switch again, this time partner A does 2 stations before switching with partner B. Partner B does 2 stations and switches.

Partner A then does 3 stations and switches, then partner B does 3 stations, etc.

So you can see that at first, it’s not going to take long for your partner to do one station and thus you only have a short amount of time to waste time on the wasting time side of the court.  That time increases as your partner has to do more stations.

Here’s the choices for wasting time:

1. Burpees: 10 reps
2. Jump Rope: 75 jumps
3. Inch worms: using towels or paper towels or gliders under your feet, move your hands out into a plank and tuck your knees in. Then move your hands out further and tuck your knees in again, inching your way along.
4. Carry a med ball around while you jog 2 laps around the track.  (note:  we have an indoor track.  ~12 laps = 1 mile, therefore 2 laps = ~1/6 of a mile)

7 Stations:

You can have more or less than 7, but 7 is a good number for about 40-45 minutes or work.

1. 15: chest press with pelvic thrusts
2. 20: plank rows
3. 10 each side: oblique lifts with exercise ball
4. 10:  pull ups
5. 10 each side:  Bulgarian hop squats holding a med ball and hoping on your leg.
6. 20:  jumping jacks hold a weight.
7. 6 box jumps and then 6 tricep dips

Ending

If there’s still time left in the hour, then I’ll do some running relays. Then cool them down and stretch them out.

3. Indoor Workout: The 5-10-15

Time: 45 Minutes
Equipment: Pull Up Bar, Boxes, Dumbbells, Kettlebells, Padded Medicine Balls, Suspension Trainers (I like to set it up so there can be up to 4 people at a station.)
Format: AMRAP circuits
Designer: Lizelle Din

Set Up and Method

Set up 5 stations. Each station has 3 exercises. Write them on a card and place them at each station.

Campers will spend 5 minutes at each station doing as many rounds of the circuit as possible. Rest for 1 minute in between.

Warmup – 10 minutes

Jog in Place, Squats, Lunges, Hamstring Kicks, Walkout to Spider Lunges, Push Ups to Side Rotations, Jumping Jacks

STATION 1 – Pull Up Bar and Boxes

1. 5 Pull Ups
2. 10 Box Jumps
3. 15 Boat Pose Crunches on Box

STATION 2 – Dumbbells

1. 5 Plank Up Downs
2. 10 DB Supine Chest Presses
3. 15 DB Squats

STATION 3 – Kettlebells

1. 5 KB High Pulls
2. 10 KB Half Get Ups (5 on each side)
3. 15 KB Swings or Deadlifts

STATION 4 – Padded Medicine Balls (and wall)

1. 5 Burpees
2. 10 Wall Balls
3. 15 Pylo Push Ups off Wall

STATION 5 – Suspension Trainers

1. 5 TRX Bicep Curls
2. 10 TRX Pistol Squats (5 on each leg)
3. 15 TRX Jump Squats

Cool Down – 5 minutes

Stretch!

4. Pairs Complexes

Workout type: Strength, Muscular Endurance
Length: 45 minutes
Equipment needed: Dumbbells (5-6 kg), Kettlebells (8-12 kg), Weight Plates (5-10 kg)
Designer: Ben Callaghan

Set up

You’ll need a flat field/court/indoor space. Make sure you have enough equipment for everyone to work in pairs. Dumbbells, weight plates and kettlebells should be set up in separate areas, not too far away from each other but so that there is enough space between pairs.

Main drill

Organise the group, or get the group to organise themselves, into pairs of similar strength levels. The workout involves one person in the pair working while the other rests. Stagger pairs so there is an even number of pairs starting at each station.

The object of the session is for each person in each pair to complete each complex 3 times. I ran the session with each pair completing 3 rounds of each on one complex before moving on to the next set of exercises. You could also run it so that pairs move on after each completing the complex once, and completing 3 rounds in that fashion.

Dumbbell Complex:

10 Alternating Lunges
10 Bent Over Rows
10 Curls to Presses (Bicep Curl to Overhead Press)
10 Renegade Rows (minus the press up)

Weight Plate Complex:

10 Goblet Squats
10 Corkscrews
10 Overhead Presses
10 Leg Raises

Kettlebell Complex:

10 Swings
10 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
10 Goblet Squats
10 Deadlifts

Body Weight Complex:

10 Broken Burpees aka 10 rounds of:

1 Squat
1 Press up
1 Mountain Climber on each side
1 Jump

Complexes must be completed without putting the weight down. I added a punishment run (about 200 m) if anyone put their weight down during a complex which both members of the pair had to complete.

Cooldown

Finish with stretches for the whole body.

5. Partner Skipping Chipper

Drill Type: Finisher
Drill Length: 5 minutes
Equipment: 1 Skipping Rope per camper
Designer: Pat Carr

Partner your group up into mixed skipping levels (i.e. best skipper with worst skipper) to make it roughly even pairs. This may not necessarily be determined by fitness!

The goal is to race to complete 500 skips between your pair first. The trick is, you only have one partner skipping at a time, and once one person trips up they have to stop and get their partner to continue (regardless of how many skips they got). This can end up being a bit of fun, as one partner could get 100 skips, pass to the next person who trips up after 2 skips, and the original exhausted partner has to skip again straight away!

Note the count is cumulative, so if one partner gets 52, the next partner starts counting from 53.

First pair to 500 wins!

What are your go to indoor ideas?

Do you have a favourite warm up or workout that you like to use when training your clients indoors?

Share with us in the comments below.

Theresa Prior

Theresa Prior has a mission to bring Mums and women together in a safe and supportive environment that just so happens to have fun fitness sessions at it’s core. She has been running her own personal training business since 2013. Theresa helps her clients understand that all aspects of their health are equally important.