Get your heart and mind active with our Workout of the Week

Sport and Public Services tutor Parley Hamilton delivers a cardio workout to help keep your heart and mind active.

Our Weekly Workouts are a series of home fitness and wellbeing workouts delivered by The Manchester College's Sport department. These workouts require minimal equipment and aim to engage and grow body muscles but those all important brain muscles too..

After a week's break, the fifth weekly workout is delivered by Sport and Public Services tutor Parley Hamilton. He's the longest serving member of staff in the department and over the years his teaching and mentoring has positively impacted the lives of hundreds of students from across Manchester. 

Away from work, Parley takes part in charitable work and tirelessly encourages students from all provisions to join sports clubs and teams – he is a real advocate for health and wellbeing. Parley is also an exceptionally gifted badminton player and often hosts sessions at our College's Nicholls campus.

Check out this week's Workout of the Week!

Pre-workout checklist

• Comfortable clothes

• Trainers or flat shoes

• A glass or bottle of water

• A skipping rope – desirable but not essential

• Six sports cones – six of any objects will do (tins and bottles are good alternatives).

More information about Parley's workout

• Warm up

Two to three minutes of skipping to raise your heart rate.  If you don't have a skipping rope you can jog on the spot (normal or high knees) or perform continuous star jumps.

• Main session

Parley has set you two challenges that will target your cardiovascular system (heart and lungs).  The activities are designed to raise your heart rate above its normal level – they're also a bit of fun.

To get the most out of the workout you need to push yourself but please perform the exercises at your own pace and remain mindful of your limitations – please refer to the important information paragraph above.

Consistent anaerobic activity over a long period of time is proven to improve fitness levels.

Challenge one

• Place four sports cones four metres apart to create a square

• Starting in the middle of the square, ask someone else in your household to shout out the colour of the cone you need to run to next and continue this for one minute (or until you're tired).  If you don't live with anyone else move from cone to cone randomly for the duration of the set

• Please remember to work at your own pace and take regular water breaks

• Take a one minute break and repeat this exercise between three and six times depending on your level of fitness.

Challenge two​

• Line six sports cones up in a row with approximately six metres (you can increase this distance if you wish) between the first and last cones

• Start six metres away from the cones, run to each cone individually and return them to your starting position to create a parallel row of cones as demonstrated by Parley

• Repeat until all the cones have been moved or you have completed the exercise for one minute

• Take a one minute break and repeat this exercise between three and six times depending on your level of fitness.