I am always looking around to add to my bag of tricks, especially when it comes to learning new techniques that will help us burn fat faster and improve our stamina. I enjoy learning about different exercise methodologies and seeing how I can apply them to improve my own fitness or improve the fitness of our NGPT clients.
Last year we brought in Brooke Langley as our newest superstar personal trainer. Brooke has a very strong background in a variety of styles of fitness and she introduced me to the EMOM and my brain went right to work!
The basic rule of the EMOM (Every Minute On the Minute) is that you have a prescribed amount of reps for an exercise that you perform each minute. Once you hit your number of reps you get to rest and recover until the next minute rolls around. For example you would do 10 burpees every minute on the minute for ten minutes. Here is a good article to check out for more info on the basics of the EMOM: More on the EMOM
I started to tinker around with this EMOM protocol and I noticed that I would get a few rounds into it and then I would fatigue and the quality of my reps went down hill fast. I wanted to stay in that “conditioning sweet spot” a little longer so I developed something that I call the Progressive EMOM which has a few basic rules:
1. You start at a set amount of reps.
2. You add one rep to your count every minute that you make it through successfully.
3. Once you fail to hit your goal number of reps you rest the next minute.
4. Then you start over and build back up following rules 1-3 until your time is up.
For example:
Progressive EMOM Burpees for 10 minutes
Minute 1: 5 reps
Minute 2: 6 reps
Minute 3: 7 reps
Minute 4: 8 reps
Minute 5: 9 reps
Minute 6: You only get 7 reps when your goal was 10 reps (see Rule #3)
Minute 7: REST
Minute 8: Start back at 5 reps
Minute 9: 6 reps
Minute 10: 7 reps
I love using this protocol to pair up TWO exercises. For example this morning in my Ring The Bell class I paired up Kettlebell Swings and Push ups. They started at 5/5 and built up for 10 minutes. This is an awesome tool that will help you burn fat faster and improve your stamina by staying in your conditioning sweet spot a little longer. You can manipulate several variables to fit your needs including the exercises, reps per minute (how many you start at), and how many total minutes you go for.
The first time you try this I recommend starting out with a ten minute set and then build up. If you want a big time challenge you can go for 20-30 minutes. This is a great example of something you can do while on vacation also. Just take one or two tough bodyweight exercises and run through a 20 minute Progressive EMOM and you will be set for the day!
