The subject of EMOM workouts came up on the Dragon Door forums recently and of course that made me immediately want to do one! It was late at night but I figured I had 20 minutes to spend wisely. After a short joint mobility warm up (feel free to throw in some light weight or no weight get-ups) I set up the interval timer app (I use Interval Timer Pro from Deltaworks) on my iPhone to chime on the minute every minute for 20 minutes. I had a 22kg kettlebell handy and decided to use it because 1. I really like the finish on that one, it’s kind of slightly grippy and dry 2. Wanted to use something reasonably heavy for these short sets of swings–but wasn’t feeling the need to set any world records. I was doing this at 10PM after all.
OK! Here’s what I did – it’s simple, but it added up! I paused the timer in the middle for a water break but other than that, this is a great challenge to do all the way through. It’s also easy to scale things on this model. You can always use another pulling movement instead of the strict pull-ups (example: Aussie pull-ups aka bodyweight rows).
Every minute on the minute I did:
- 2 dead hang pull-ups
- 5 tuck-ups*
- 10 kettlebell swings (two hand)
Which didn’t seem like a lot each go round, but which added up handily! 40 pull-ups, 100 tuck-ups, and 200 kettlebell swings… not bad for a short little late night workout… filing this one away for other busy times.
The key to coming up with good combos for EMOM workouts is understanding the role of time in the movements you choose, for example kettlebell swings are “faster” than snatches just because the distance the kettlebell travels is greater with snatches–which also have a pause at the top. If we were to do this EMOM example with snatches, I might take them down to six reps per round instead of the 10 kettlebell swings. It’s also important to not choose too many things to do each round, you need to build in a fair amount of “rest” within each set too. It’s a fun puzzle to solve (and feel free to modify and polish your EMOM creations the first time you try them, it’s a great learning experience).
Another great use of EMOM workouts is for single or doubles of very difficult exercises. I like to use the same timer settings to do single reps of weighted pull ups for example. Each rep will be great because of the timed rest… it’s a great strength and habit builder. It’s also fantastic for building confidence on challenging lifts or moves. 🙂
I hadn’t given the EMOM workout format much attention until I was helping Mike Krivka with his cool ebook, Code Name: Indestructable.
*In response to Gerri’s question below, here’s also a video with tuck-ups and some alternatives too!
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