5 minute AMRAP
The Piston
Blood Shunt · intensity 3 of 5
The workout
As many rounds as possible in 5 minutes of:
How to run it
The baseline test. Hips open fully at the top of the squat, chest rests dead on the floor.
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.
The movements
Air Squats
"Tear the floor apart with your feet." This externally rotates the femur, activating the glutes and preventing the knees from caving in.
Let gravity do the work on the way down. Pull yourself into the bottom quickly, then explode up. Use your arms for rhythm.
Hand-Release Push-ups
"Squeeze the shoulder blades together." Lifting the hands isn't a rest; it's an active contraction of the upper back.
This enforces a dead-stop and prevents cheating the depth. Use this variation to humble users who claim they can do 50 push-ups unbroken.
Scaling it
Every movement here is bodyweight, so the scaling lever is volume rather than load. If a round is taking longer than about ninety seconds, halve the reps and keep the round count moving — the point of an AMRAP is continuous work, and a round you grind through in four minutes teaches you less than three rounds at a pace you can repeat.
Run it with friends
The Piston runs on a shared countdown: share a rally link, everyone gets the same5-minute clock, and the leaderboard updates as people log rounds.