Chris Powell's Choose More, Lose More for Life (32 page)

Step forward with your right foot, returning to the frog-squat position.

Stand up, driving through your heels to reach the starting position.

Start in a deep runner’s starting stance, with both hands on the floor at shoulder width, your right knee thrust forward to just inside your right elbow and your left leg extended all the way behind you. You should be on your toes, with your back and arms straight and your eyes looking directly to the front.

Supporting yourself on your hands and keeping your abs tight, jump to switch the positions of your feet as fast as you can.

Land gently in the starting position, but with your left knee forward and your right leg extended back.

As soon as your feet touch down, jump to switch the positions of your feet again.

Land gently in the starting position, with your right knee forward and your left leg extended back.

Intermediate version of Mountain Climbers

Start in the plank position with your toes a few inches apart on the floor, your hands on the floor below your shoulders and your elbows extended so you’re pushed up at the shoulders. Your body should be rigid from your toes to your shoulders and your abs should be tight.

Keeping your abs tight, bring your right foot forward as far as you can and touch your toe to the floor.

As soon as your toe touches the floor, extend your right leg behind you again so you’re back in the plank position.

Keeping your abs tight, bring your left foot forward as far as you can and touch your toe to the floor.

As soon as your toe touches the floor, extend your left leg behind you again so you’re back in the starting position.

Okay, you’ve got the Sprinterval, Rapid Rounds, Enduro, Stepladder, and Super Circuit protocols for your 9-Minute Mission. You’ve got the thirty 9-Minute Mission exercises based on your body’s basic running, jumping, pushing, squatting, and crunching movements. So how do you figure out which missions to do on which days, and how to organize them into a week or a month of workouts? You don’t have to think about it, because I’ve set up an awesome plan for you!

Five days a week, four weeks a month, you do a 9-Minute Mission. (The other two days of the week you rest—no exercise at all!) One day you exercise your upper body (pushing), one day you exercise your core (crunching), and one day you exercise your lower body (squatting); two days a week
you exercise your entire body. I’ve split your schedule up like this so you avoid overtraining any particular muscle. Yes, you will end up exercising certain muscles two days in a row, because your total-body workouts and your muscle-group workouts fall on adjacent days. But that’s the max! After that they’ll always have at least one day of rest before you exercise them again.