AMRAP With Friends

5 minute AMRAP

Pulse Spike

Upper-lower switch · Blood Shunt · intensity 3 of 5

The workout

As many rounds as possible in 5 minutes of:

Overview

Pulse Spike is 12 jumping lunges and 8 dive-bomber push-ups. The jumping lunges and the dive-bomber push-ups trade the quads and the chest.

Muscles worked

Energy systems

These are overlapping contributions. This workout is not assigned to one energy system.

  • Glycolytic: High
  • Oxidative: Low
  • Neuromuscular: Moderate

Training effect

Immediate demand

5 minutes, intensity 3 of 5. Today the limiter is the jumping lunges.

Intended stimulus

The style is built to switch the upper body and the lower body inside one round. On this workout that is 12 jumping lunges and 8 dive-bomber push-ups.

Repeated practice

Repeat the same workout and compare the score. What can change over weeks is how long that pace lasts. One time through does not produce that change.

Body-composition context

Body weight changes with the rest of how you eat and train. This workout is one piece of work on one day.

Expected feel

12 jumping lunges is where the round gets hard. The other movements still have to be finished after it.

Pacing

Devastating. If the jumping lunges degrade into sloppy steps, regress to strict reverse lunges.

The clock is short enough to start near the pace you can hold. Do not spend the first minute looking for a rhythm, and do not let the jumping lunges be the set that collapses.

The movements

Jumping Lunges (Total)

Use your arms as a counterweight. Pumping the opposite arm forward provides stability and upward momentum.

What not to do. Landing on a stiff front leg rather than absorbing into the lunge.

Dive-Bomber Push-ups

This is a slow, tension-heavy movement. Focus on continuous, unbroken motion rather than speed.

What not to do. Skipping the return swoop and pressing straight back to the start.

Why these movements

The jumping lunges and the dive-bomber push-ups trade the quads and the chest.

Scaling

Keep an upper-body movement and a lower-body movement in the same round. Drop reps on both before you drop one of them.

Jumping Lunges (Total)

  • Step instead of jump. Same pattern, same range, no flight. Keeps the pace without the landing.
  • Lower and slower. Keep the jump but cut the height and take the landing softly.

Dive-Bomber Push-ups

  • Hands elevated. Hands on a bench, chair or step. The higher the surface, the easier the rep.
  • From the knees. Knees down, hips in line with the shoulders — do not let the hips pike up.
  • Partial range. Lower as far as you can control and press back. Depth grows as you do.

Mistakes and who it is for

  • Opening the jumping lunges at a sprint makes the jumping lunges the piece that falls apart.
  • Resting until you feel fresh between movements removes the point of keeping them in one round.
  • Letting the jumping lunges shrink so the rest of the round can speed up changes the workout on the page.

Suited to someone who wants 5 minutes through Jumping Lunges (Total), Dive-Bomber Push-ups.

Scoring and progression

Work through the movements in the order listed, then start the next round. Your score is the number of complete rounds plus any reps of the round you were partway through when the clock hit zero — written as rounds plus reps, so seven full rounds and twelve reps is7+12.

Progression is repeating this workout and comparing that score. The page does not promise a change from one time through.

Related workouts

Run it with friends

Pulse Spike runs on a shared countdown: share a rally link, everyone gets the same 5-minute clock, and the leaderboard updates as people log rounds.

Start this workoutMore 5 minute AMRAPs