I tried Chris Hemsworth’s 10-minute bodyweight workout and the results surprised me

A lot of people think that to get fit and strong you have to hit the gym or use dumbbells and barbells. Not true. Bodyweight workouts are massively underestimated and can tick both of these boxes. Not to mention, they can be done virtually anywhere, so you can easily slot them into your working day.

That’s why I was excited to stumble across this 10-minute workout from Chris Hemsworth and his longtime trainer turned friend, Luke Zochhi. It’s a low-impact HIIT workout that will boost your cardiovascular fitness, whilst building muscle endurance.

Keen to break up my working day sat at my desk, I decided to give it a whirl and, despite only being 10 minutes, I was left sweating! I guess it just goes to show, you can never underestimate the power of a short workout. Here’s how I got on…

Chris Hemsworth’s workout

Chris Hemsworth Shares His 10 Minute Low Impact Bodyweight Workout - YouTube

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The workout is a low-impact HIIT workout. By low-impact we mean there's no 'jumping' or high-impact exercises involved (like jumping squats or high-knees). There are five exercises to work through, and you do each exercise for 40 seconds, followed by a 20-second rest, completing two rounds in total. However, on the second round, Zocchi ups the ante slightly by making each exercise slightly more difficult.

Zocchi favours compound exercises in this routine, because they work more muscles at once, which elevates your heart rate more, so they not only improve your cardiovascular fitness, but functional strength too. The exercise selection targets your entire body from head to toe, including your core, so you get a well-rounded, full-body workout. Here’s what it looked like:

Round 1

• Mountain climber switches
• Squats
• Should taps
• Alternating reverse lunges
• Bicycle crunches

Round 2

• Mountain climbers
• Prisoner squats
• Plank with a reach
• Alternating reverse lunges with leg drive
• Russian twists

How I found the workout

I thought this workout would be a breeze, only being 10 minutes, but having mountain climbers as the first exercise is pure evil (on Zocchi’s part). Doing these non-stop for 40 seconds is hard and, admittedly, I had to take a few seconds rest in between as my abs, shoulders, and arms were on fire! I was very grateful squats were up next to give my upper body a break.

Squats are the king of lower body exercises and are great for building functional strength, as it’s one of the main movement patterns we use every day. As someone who strength trains four times a week, these were much more up my street. Albeit, come the final five seconds I could feel the lactate building up in my quads as I’m not used to working for a set time period— good thing shoulder taps were next!

These were my favourite exercise of the entire workout, as I feel shoulder taps are a significantly underrated full-body exercise. They’re also amazing for your core too. It was tempting to speed through these to lessen the burn, but I knew taking shortcuts meant I wouldn’t experience their full benefit. Slow and controlled is key here, with minimal twisting from your body so, I put on the brakes, and had to dig deep.

The final exercise was the dreaded bicycle crunches. Again, similar to the shoulder taps, if you do these slow and controlled, really focusing on aiming to get your elbow to touch the outside of your leg, they burn your obliques like nothing else and you'll reap the benefits more.

By the end of that first round, I’d worked up a proper little sweat and I massively regretted not having my gym water bottle to hand. You won’t be pleased to hear that the second round didn’t get any easier either. At the end of the entire workout, my fitness tracker was showing that my heart rate had shot up to over 150 bpm and my shoulders, core and legs in particular were all aching. Clearly, my muscle endurance needs some improvement.

Despite only being 10 minutes, I thought this workout was ace. Obviously you're not going to burn a ton of calories doing it, or get super jacked, but it's an easy and fun way to incorporate movement into your day and will keep you fit. Plus, there's no reason why you can't make it more challenging, like doing it a couple of times and turning it into a 20-minute workout, or even adding some dumbbells to the exercises.

Time certainly flies doing this workout, which is always a sign of a fun session. Doing exercise that you find enjoyable is one of the biggest motivators, so choose workouts that you genuinely take pleasure in and that put a smile on your face.