Tracy Anderson’s 7-Minute Cardio Workout Is a Heart-Pumping, Full-Body Sweat Sesh

The key with shorter workouts, according to Tracy Anderson, who's instructed everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Tracee Ellis Ross, Lena Dunham, and Madonna, is to activate as many muscle groups as possible simultaneously. "Your entire body has to participate in order to perform these moves properly," she says. If you do this, "you don't have to be running or jumping to get a good cardiovascular workout," explains Anderson, who regularly streams videos of real-time workouts from her eponymous studios in New York City. That's why this Tracy Anderson workout is able to help you work up a major sweat in 7 minutes flat.

"You don't have to be running or jumping to get a good cardiovascular workout."

To start, she suggests doing a rhythmic, weight-transferring sequence that involves a squat, a high diagonal side-kick, and a high knee. The high-energy move isolates the muscles on one side of the body for an added muscle-burning effect. Once you do around 40 reps on one side, she suggests switching to the next, and doing 40 reps on that side as well.

Next up? A walking pyramid plank-squat. Roll out a yoga mat to be your guide, and starting in a plank position with hands in the center of the mat, take your feet just beyond the mat's edges. Bring the right and left legs behind the corresponding hands, then shoot the feet to the right side of the mat. Bring the feet back up behind the corresponding hands and take them out to the left of the mat. That's one rep. Do 20 and blast some Foo Fighters to get you through it, Anderson says. Then, switch up which leg makes the first move for 20 more reps.

Finish up with the out-in planks, which spikes the heart rate by keeping you moving consistently. In a basic plank, keep your hands gripping the mat, and take one leg out, followed by the other. Then, bring them both back in quickly. Mid-way through you can switch which leg comes in first. And there you have it: A 7-minute, 3-move Tracy Anderson workout that works every muscle in the body.

You can eat like Anderson, too! Here's her go-to salad recipe, and a dressing to match.