Three Awesome Drills to Put in Circuits

One type of circuit I love to create is a drill circuit. Instead of exercises, a drill circuit is made up of… can you guess?.. drills!

This has several benefits:

• More enjoyable – working on a task instead of counting reps
• Takes longer – one circuit for 2 or 3 rounds can take up the entire workout time
• Less stopping for explaining – one explanation of everything at the start and off they go
• Builds teamwork – drills often require several people meaning that instead of doing push ups by yourself, you’re working together with your team mate

With the latest Little Bootcamp Book out just this week, I thought I would share two of my favourite drills to put in a drill circuit.

Partner Tyre Flip With Shuttle

Number of people: Two

Place 3 cones in a row, each 10m apart. Grab a truck or tractor tyre and lie it flat near the middle cone.

The pair should stand on either side of the tyre with their backs to a cone (see diagram).

One client flips the tyre once and then sprints away from the tyre around their cone 10m away. While they are doing this their partner flips the tyre back in the opposite direction and then sprints around their cone.

After sprinting to their cone they run back to flip the tyre again. Clients keep flipping and sprinting until it’s time to change stations.

I-Go You-Go Rope Slams (Tabata Style)

Number of people: Two (put beginners in threes, taking it in turns)

You probably don’t have enough ropes for everyone in your bootcamp. Neither did I, so this was my solution to sharing equipment while still working hard.

To get around this I do timed interval training of 20 seconds.

Assign two people to one piece of equipment. In this case let’s say the equipment is a tractor tyre and the exercise is tyre flips.

Person A goes first completing as many rope slams as possible in 20 seconds. Person B counts the reps. As soon as 20 seconds is up I call out ‘Swap’ as which point Person A stops slamming and Person B takes over. Person B will then try to equal or beat Person A’s score.

After another 20 seconds it’s time to swap again. After 4 minutes of this both people will have had 6 attempts and they will be ready to go to the next exercise.

For quick change overs, do single slams with one person in either end of the rope (see video).

You can also do this with tyre flips, sled pushes, tyre drags, rope sprints. You get the idea.

Team Rope Sprints

Number of people: Three

Set up two cones 30 to 40m apart. You can go further if you like. I usually do this as a team drill and I want to keep rest times short so I set out a short sprint distance.

Assign 3 clients to a rope. Clients A and C start at one end. Client B goes to the other cone. Client A hoists one end of the rope onto their shoulder and sprints to the other cone dragging the rope behind them. The resistance that the rope causes will make this very difficult.

Once client A reaches client B they drop the end of the rope on the ground. Client B picks it up and sprints back to client C. Client C then picks it up and sprints it back to client A starting the cycle over again.

Repeat for reps or time.

Video

More drills like this

All three of these drills come from the Little Bootcamp Book of Tyres and Ropes (yes, I know, it’s a mouthful). There are 10 more drills like this in the book, plus a tonne of exercises and 10 done-for-you workouts.

Some of those workouts are drill circuits and will show you how to incorporate the drills above into a workout. Find out more.

Kyle Wood

Kyle Wood created Bootcamp Ideas in 2010 when he was hunting around on the internet for workout ideas. He ran a successful bootcamp in Victoria, Australia and spends his spare time managing this site, adventuring (or lazying) with his wife and find new ways to make bootcamps even better.