The backpack home workout is a Physical Friday training format I shared in April 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown had gyms closed and most of us stuck at home. It requires nothing more than a loaded backpack and about six feet of space, which means it works in an apartment, a bedroom, or a hotel room. On this episode I walk through Jelly Legs, the paired-ladder workout I use when space and equipment run out, and I explain how to scale it for anyone in your house.
Hear the full Jelly Legs breakdown and how to keep training through a lockdown
Any backpack or ruck works. Tom suggests using a kid's school backpack, which is probably already sitting by the door loaded with heavy books. A loaded backpack is an outstanding way to add resistance and enhance almost any bodyweight workout.
About a six-foot square is enough. Tom designed this workout for lockdown conditions, so it works in a small apartment, a bedroom, or a hotel room where gyms and public spaces are off limits.
Jelly Legs is a decreasing ladder paired with an increasing ladder. You start with 20 squats and 1 push-up, then 19 squats and 2 push-ups, and continue until you reach 1 squat and 20 push-ups. You can pair the format with any two exercises, such as sit-ups and burpees.
Yes. Wearing a heavy ruck makes the ladder harder for you while someone without a ruck does the same workout at their own level, so kids, spouses, and anyone you are quarantined with can train together in the same small space.
Finish the full ladder, then pick two other exercises and run the ladder again. Adding resistance with a heavier backpack or a resistance band around your shoulders enhances the workout even further.
Tom announces the Wim Hof quarantine challenge, which pairs three rounds of Wim Hof breathing with a thirty-second cold shower, alongside the one hundred day burpee challenge, where you add one burpee every day for one hundred days.
A lot of people spend all of their time at the gym and assume they have nothing to train with at home. You have more than you think. In my house there is a school backpack sitting right next to the door, loaded with heavy books, and that is all the resistance this workout needs. GORUCK likes to call it a ruck, which is a pretty fancy term for a backpack. On the episode I explain exactly how that one piece of gear turns a bodyweight session into something much harder.
One thing I love about this format is that it scales without changing the workout. Wearing a heavy ruck makes the session difficult for me while my wife or kids can do the exact same ladder without one, so we can train side by side at completely different levels. Lockdown time does not have to be endured. It can be spent together. I get into the details of pairing exercises and adjusting the load on the audio, including what to do when the first ladder is not enough.
Plenty of good coaches stepped up when the gyms closed. David Goggins ran live workouts on Facebook and Instagram, Noah Ohlsen was posting a free at-home workout every day at 11:00 on Instagram, and Amazon Prime carries a surprising amount of workout content, especially yoga and core routines that families can do together. Ross Enamait even showed how to do ab rollouts with a rolling office chair instead of a fancy ab wheel. I run through all of these options in the episode before getting into the workout itself.
This episode kicks off a series. Over the next few Physical Fridays I cover more workouts you can do in a six-foot area with no equipment at all, because staying in shape through a lockdown takes creativity more than gear. I also announce the April challenges: the Wim Hof quarantine challenge paired with the one hundred day burpee challenge. You might even find these workouts are better than what you were doing before. Listen to the full episode for how the challenges work and how to join in.
Knowing that a small space and a borrowed backpack are enough for a real workout gives me a lot of comfort. Whether I am stuck in a hotel room or locked down in quarantine, nothing stops me from training, and that mindset matters more right now than any single workout.
Stay safe, make good choices with social distancing, get your sleep, and eat as well as you possibly can. If this format helps you keep moving through the lockdown, that is exactly why I recorded it.
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Tom Rowland: Hey, everybody. Welcome to physical Friday this week. We're all kind of locked down at the in the coronavirus pandemic. Gyms are closed. Everybody's looking for stuff to do on at home. And right away, lots of people have been posting stuff on Instagram, Facebook live, some pretty good opportunities, you know, in these in these times of of lockdown, in these times of uncertainty. You know, it's easy to get mired in the details of of, you know, uncertainty, and so many people have have real real problems right now. But there's also a lot of great opportunities.
Tom Rowland: One of which was, one of the guys that I like to follow, David Goggins. He had a a lot a couple of live workouts on Facebook and Instagram live. There have been a lot of those things. Noah Ohlsen is doing a a free at home workout every every day, I think, at 11:00 on Instagram. There's been a bunch of those, and I'm sure you're finding plenty of those for yourself. But those are those are good options, that you can do.
Tom Rowland: Some of the other things that you can do when you're locked down like this is to use some of the the resources that we've talked about before, like Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime has a tremendous amount of workout content, especially if you like yoga or or kind of ab core routines. And these are very conducive to doing this as a family. You can use this opportunity to work out together as a family with your kids, with your wife, trying to find some time that, you know, make the most of this time rather than than, just enduring it. Make make the most of it. And if you could spend that time together, awesome.
Tom Rowland: One of the things that I wanna talk about today on this physical Friday is how you can make the most of what you have around you. A lot of people spend all of their time at the gym and have nothing or they think they have nothing to work out with at home. But you actually do have more than you than you think. I saw one of, the people that I like to follow, Ross Enamait. He was showing how to do ab rollouts with a rolling office chair the other day instead of some fancy ab rollout thing. He was just holding on to the bottom of the office chair and doing that.
Tom Rowland: The things that we're gonna talk about right now have to do with any sort of a backpack, a ruck. You know? That's what GORUCK likes to call it. It's a pretty fancy term for a backpack. You can use your kid's backpack from school. They're not going to school right now. They're they don't need it. You can load that thing. It's probably sitting there right next to you know, if it's like my house, it's right next to the to the door full of books, heavy books. And a backpack is an outstanding thing to use, to enhance any sort of workout.
Tom Rowland: So one of the things that that I like to do is, is a workout called jelly legs. It's a workout that you can do anywhere, and it is a decreasing ladder paired with an increasing ladder. So in this case, you could probably do this with any sort of exercise, but on this one, we'll do an increase a decreasing ladder of squats paired with an increasing ladder of burpees or maybe you could do push ups if you wanna do it with this with this, ruck on.
Tom Rowland: So on the first round, you would do 20 squats with a ruck on, and then you would do one push up. The second round, you do 19 squats, two push ups. Third round, 18 squats, three push ups. 17 squats, four push ups. 16 squats, five push ups, and you continue until you get all the way down to one squat and 20 push ups. You can pair that with any two exercises.
Tom Rowland: You can make it more difficult by wearing a heavy ruck, which makes it difficult for you, but maybe not as difficult for someone who's not wearing the ruck. So that makes this very conducive to being able to do it with your wife or with your kids or with whoever is living in your house or whoever you're quarantined with. You don't need a lot of room, and you can get this done.
Tom Rowland: If it's not enough for you, then do 20, squats, one push up, and and do that whole ladder, and then pick two other exercises that you can do the ladder right after that. So in a six foot square with your kid's backpack, I promise you you're gonna get an outstanding workout. That workout is called jelly legs, but you can take that jelly legs format, which is a decreasing format paired with an increasing format, and you can pair that up with anything. Do it with sit ups and push ups. Do it with burpees and squats. Do it with, you know, jumping jacks and and and, and burpees. Do it with with with push ups. Do it with, you know, anything that you want to, just push ups and sit ups. You're You're gonna be able to get a pretty good workout like that. And if you add resistance to it in the form of a resistance band around your shoulders or, in the case of this, some sort of heavy backpack, you're gonna enhance that workout even further.
Tom Rowland: So that's one way that you can use just a little six foot area. I always say it's kind of a prison workout, but that's kind of where we are these days. We're all kind of locked down. Some people can't go out. You're stuck in a little apartment. How are you gonna get a workout? Well, here you go. And on the next few physical Fridays, we're gonna go over other workouts that you can do in a six foot area with no equipment. And we can get pretty creative of how we can create, resistance in a small area with very simple exercises, enough to keep you in shape during this time of lockdown.
Tom Rowland: And what you might find is you might find that these workouts are better than the workouts you were doing before, and, that you can start to incorporate these into your regular routine. Anyway, I like them, and it always makes me feel good to know that whether I'm stuck in a hotel room or if I'm locked down on quarantine from the coronavirus or, you know, whatever. I have I have a minimum amount of space, a minimum amount of equipment. I have, you know, the the the comfort of knowing that that's not gonna stop me from getting a workout. I'm gonna get a workout anyway. Right?
Tom Rowland: So I hope that you guys are staying safe. You're making good choices as far as social distancing. You stay away from this coronavirus. Don't get it yourself, and don't pass it on to anyone else. And you're also staying healthy. So I encourage you to make sure that you're getting your exercise, get your good sleep, and eat as well as you possibly can.
Tom Rowland: If you are, interested, the new, April challenges have come out, and the April challenge for this or the next month's challenge is gonna last a little longer than April. It's the we're gonna jump in on the Wim Hof quarantine challenge, which is to do the breathing, three rounds, and then do a thirty second cold shower for the first period of it, and then that both of those increase. We're also pairing that with the one hundred day burpee challenge. So on day one, you do one burpee. On day two, you do two burpees. You continue adding a burpee every single day for a hundred days. It's gonna ramp up your ability to do burpees. It's gonna ramp up your fitness. And at the same time, we're going to be pursuing a clear, calm mind and also boosting the immune system through the Wim Hof, method, which has been proven by science to do exactly that.
Tom Rowland: So if you need more information on how to do the Wim Hof method, there's an article on Tom Rowland podcast for the April challenges with all kinds of links to YouTube videos, to tutorials by Wim Hof himself where he walks you through the breathing. Very, very simple to do. Again, you need no space. You You just need a quiet place where you can be by yourself for a little bit, do this breathing. And then, man, before you get out of the shower, just turn that thing on cold and, sit in there for thirty seconds. You'll be amazed at how you feel. I love it. I actually hate it when it's happening. I really don't like the cold water. But once it's over, start warming up, and I feel great.
Tom Rowland: So, anyway, that's the challenge. If you want more information, go find that that article, which will be linked in the show notes here, and you can learn how to do it for yourself. Okay. Until next week. See you.
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