Jennis home workout from Jessica Ennis Hill

Jessica Ennis-Hill is one of our all time heroes who went from being an Olympic gold athlete to a busy working mum of two and recently founded Jennis, a home workout fitness app to help us great results in short amounts of time. Here she shares a super-effective home workout with no equipment needed…

Listen to the DOSE podcast with Jessica Ennis-Hill.

When you want a really effective workout you can do from your living room, bodyweight exercises are brilliant. Not only do they get great results, but they use no equipment and give you both a strength and cardio workout. Here’s one of my favourites…

For this circuit you’ll need an exercise mat, a stop watch on your phone, a set of dumbbells (or cans of beans or soup will do) and that’s it. The rest is just about you using your bodyweight to get maximum results.

This workout consists of 3x sets of 7 different exercises with a rest in between each set. You should warm up and warm down before you start by doing 60 secs of jogging on the spot.

Home workout from Jessica Ennis-Hill

Jennis Home workout Set 1

= 25 secs of activity followed by 10 secs rest in between each exercise

1) Squat (25 secs)
10 secs rest

2) Ab scissors (25 secs)
10 secs rest

3) Dumbbell military press (25 secs)
10 secs rest

4) Sit up and reach (25 secs)
10 secs rest

5) Plank shoulder tap (25 secs)
10 secs rest

6) Walking half plank (25 secs)
10 secs rest

7) Burpees (25 secs)
60 secs rest

Jennis Home workout Set 2

= 30 secs of activity followed by 10 secs rest in between each exercise

1) Squat (30 secs)
10 secs rest

2) Ab scissors (30 secs)
10 secs rest

3) Dumbbell military press (30 secs)
10 secs rest

4) Sit up and reach (30 secs)
10 secs rest

5) Plank shoulder tap (30 secs)
10 secs rest

6) Walking half plank (30 secs)
10 secs rest

7) Burpees (30 secs)

Jennis Home workout Set 3

= 25 secs of activity followed by 10 secs rest in between each exercise

1) Squat (25 secs)
10 secs rest

2) Ab scissors (25 secs)
10 secs rest

3) Dumbbell military press (25 secs)
10 secs rest

4) Sit up and reach (25 secs)
10 secs rest

5) Plank shoulder tap (25 secs)
10 secs rest

6) Walking half plank (25 secs)
10 secs rest

7) Burpees (25 secs)
60 secs rest

Squat

All my favourite exercises work multiple muscles, making them super efficient. The squat is amazing for working multiple muscles –activating your glutes (bum muscles) and back, targeting the quads (thigh), hamstrings and calves, burning fat and building muscle.

– Stand with your feet hip width apart, and place your hands on your hips.

– Tighten your stomach muscles, bend your knees and squat, while keeping your upper body as straight as possible.

– Don’t allow your knees to overshoot your toes.

– Don’t allow your back to curve.

– Squat down as if you were sitting on a chair.

– Straighten your legs back up again, being careful not to lock your knees when you reach a standing position and repeat.

Ab scissors

Ab scissors work the hip flexors and a whole range of different stomach muscles (rectus abdominis, obliques and the transverse abdominis, the deepest muscle in the stomach), so it really is a brilliant exercise for the abs.

– Lie down with your back pressed against the floor. Your arms should be fully extended to the sides with your palms facing down.

– If this is too difficult place your hands to your side but slightly under each bum cheek

– With a slight bend at the knees, lift your legs up so that your heels are about 6 inches off the ground. This is the starting position.

– Lift your left leg up to about a 45-degree angle while your right leg is lowered until the heel is about 2-3 inches from the ground.

– Switch movements by raising your right leg up and lowering your left leg.

Dumbbell military press

The military press works every part of the shoulder and engages your triceps. This standing variation also activates your core. Grab a couple of cans of beans to act as a dumbbell if you need.

1) Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Lift your beans to shoulder-level and then straight above your head.

2) Bring them back down to your shoulders. 3) Repeat as many times as you can.

Sit up and reach

This variation on the classic sit-up works the upper abs, lower abs and your back.

1) Start lying on your back with your hands on your lower thighs.

2) Perform a sit-up while reaching your hands forward and up to the sky. Pause a moment at the top before returning to your start position in a controlled manner.

Plank shoulder tap

“I love this exercise as it takes the classic plank and adds a bit of variation and distraction,” says Jess. “It’s great for strengthening your core, bum, arms, wrists and shoulders, and also improves your posture and flexibility. Brilliant!”

1) Get onto all fours and into a press-up position. Keep your body straight and engage your core, making sure your feet are apart.

2) When you’re in position, gently tap your shoulder with the opposite hand. Alternate shoulders and hands.

3) Adaptation: If you’re finding this challenging, drop your knees.

Walking half plank

If you’ve mastered (or are bored) of the plank, try the walking half circle. “We used to do this one in training all the time,” says Jess. “It looks easy but is actually a really intense ab, core and upper body exercise.”

Get yourself into a normal press-up position. Make sure your hands are positioned over your shoulders.
Draw in your tummy and bum muscles.
Start ‘plank walking’ by first crossing your right hand over your left. Move your left hand so it is back in a plank position and then again cross your right hand over your left. Your whole body should move to the left, too.
Continue until you’ve moved to a 90 degree angle from your starting position.
Reverse the movements – so you put left hand over right – until you are back at your starting point.

Burpees

“Everyone hates burpees (me included), but they’re probably the very best bodyweight exercise that exists, working your arms, back, chest, core, glutes, legs, revving up your metabolism, burning fat and building muscle. Burpees definitely burn, but when you think of all the body parts they benefit, you can see that they are definitely worth it.”

– Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

– Bend your knees, reaching forward to place your hands on the floor.

– Kick your legs straight out behind you and lower your body down to the ground, bending at the elbows.

– Use your arms to quickly push your body back up and hop your legs back under your body.

– Jump straight up into the air, using your arms to propel you.

– Land with your knees slightly bent.

An online tabata timer is brilliant as you can put in how much time you want to work for on each exercise, how much time you want to rest for, plus how many exercises in each set

My inspiration

“When I went from Olympic athlete to busy working mum of two, the luxury of time to exercise went out the window. Where I’d previously trained up to 4/5 hours a day, I found it hard to even get a 20-minute session in.

“Because of this I started creating bodyweight-based circuits that would give me maximum efficiency in the shortest amount of time. These are always about working multiple muscle groups and I usually do them as part of a Pyramid-HIIT style circuit so that I’m ramping up my heart rate and then resting, ramping up my heart rate and then resting (you can see these circuits in my Jennis app).”

Get your weekly DOSE fix here: SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER