Amp up your calorie burn, boost fat loss, and give it your all with these Workout Finishers! These metabolic finishers are over in mere minutes but will leave you as a puddle on the floor. If you want to feel the burn at the end of your workout, these fun finishers will get that done.
If you strive to get the most out of your workouts and give them everything you have left, a workout finisher is for you!
Along with glute finishers, I use metabolic finishers to crush fitness results, shed body fat, and simply push myself and my clients past the point of no return.
They're something I use often in the SMASH Home Workout Program too. Moms love ending off a session with wicked fatigue.
A combo of upper body exercise, lower body exercise, and some cardio for fun, these finishers are a wicked pairing but a sure-fire way to sweat.
What Is A Workout Finisher
A workout finisher is a short, high-intensity burst added to the end of your workout to fully fatigue your muscles and boost your heart rate. normally done with 1-2 exercises in under 5 minutes. They are meant to completely exhaust you and push your limits.
Jump To
- What Is A Workout Finisher
- How Metabolic Finishers Actually Work
- Tips To Use The Workout Finishers
- Metabolic Finisher #1: Swings & Sumo Walks Superset
- Finisher #2: 5-Minute Thrusters & Bear Crawls
- Finisher #3: Barbell Glute Bridge + KB Swing 21-15-9
- Finisher #4: Banded Hip Thrust Countdown
- Finisher #5 DB Walking Lunges & Mountain Climbers
- How To Make The Finishers Harder
- Other Fitness Tips You'll Love
- Metabolic Finishers FAQs
- Don’t forget to pin these sweaty finishers!
How Metabolic Finishers Actually Work
Finishers are typically quick (a few minutes), use minimal rest, and push you close to failure using either reps or timed intervals.
They can target upper body, lower body, or full body, and can be done with bodyweight or simple equipment (check out the best home exercise equipment for weight loss). While many people default to things like burpees, finishers can be much more varied (and more effective) when you mix in combo movements and different formats.
The goal: finish your workout feeling challenged, not just checked off.
Tips To Use The Workout Finishers
Add 1 finisher to the end of your workout to push your intensity and fully fatigue your muscles.
- Go lighter with weights than for your regular sets
- Use minimal rest
- Am to feel close to failure
Finishers are meant to build on fatigue, but form still comes first. If your technique slips, scale it back. If you need it, here's a PDF printable of the metabolic finishers.
Metabolic Finisher #1: Swings & Sumo Walks Superset
This one is always a fun one but take note: it is a leg finisher and it fries the glutes! I personally love this feeling and I hope you do too.
Ensure you understand how to kettlebell swing though. The swing is a hip hinge (learn how to hip hinge) movement and not a squat.
Perform 30 Kettlebell swings supersetted with 25 sumo walks (per side). Repeat for a total of three sets without rest. Then… use these glute stretches, you'll need them!
Finisher #2: 5-Minute Thrusters & Bear Crawls
This workout finisher is… hard. It’s fatiguing as hell. So that makes it fun, right?!
Grab a weight to use for a Dumbbell thruster (which is kind of like a squat and press but without fullr ange on the squat). Make it lighter than you think because your shoulders are going to be slaughtered.
Perform 15 Thrusters followed by 30 seconds of bear crawls (alternating forwards and backwards). Rest for 30 seconds and repeat for a total of three rounds.
If you're feeling especially badass you could do this one for "as many rounds as possible".
Finisher #3: Barbell Glute Bridge + KB Swing 21-15-9
I love this glute finisher because it pairs a strength movement with a power movement. Plus it hits the two glute dominant exercises. Read what I mentioned above about kettlebell swings though. Really, don’t mess those up. It is a posterior chain exercise, not a squat.
Load up your bar with a weight that you can perform for 21 reps. It should be challenging but you shouldn’t be grinding out those last few reps.
Perform 21 barbell glute bridges, then 21 kettbell swings. Jump right back to the bridge and go for 15 reps (the 15 of the swing) and then 9 reps of both.
That’s it! Super speedy and super fatiguing.
Fun twist: you can switch up this finisher and perform each exercise for one minute and do as many reps as possible for three rounds.
Finisher #4: Banded Hip Thrust Countdown
Can you tell I love training glutes (learn about glute exercise benefits). Glutes are often overlooked and yet they respond so well to volume. So, they make a great muscle group to hit with a finisher!
To be honest, the setup on this finisher sucks.. but it’s worth it. If you can’t rock this exact setup, opt for just a mini band around the knees and a dumbbell hip thrust. Not as awesome but still great.
Set up for a barbell hip thrust but add a mini band above the knees. If you you're not in a position for a barbell thrust try a dumbbell hip thrust (aka bench glute bridge) with a band or this double banded gltue bridge.
Perform 30 hip thrusts (lockout at the top!), rest for 30 seconds then perform 25 thrusts, rest for 20 seconds, 20 thrusts, 15s rest, 15 thrusts, 10s rest, 10 thrusts + 20 second isometric hold at the top.
Finisher #5 DB Walking Lunges & Mountain Climbers
This one will leave your quads and hip flexors on fire- especially if you've just smashed a full body workout workout for beginners.. It’s also very much volume-oriented. So, if you’ve already done a lot of legs, I wouldn’t opt for this choice.
Grab a set of dumbbells (15’s work) and perform 30s of walking lunges with 30s of mountain climbers. Without resting, repeat alternating exercises for as many rounds as possible until you hit four minutes.
Switch up: want to knock down your upper body a bit more? Swap the mountain climbers for push ups!
How To Make The Finishers Harder
Once the finishers start to feel easier, you can increase the challenge with a few simple tweaks:
- Shorten your rest
- Slow the tempo
- Add an extra round
- Increase the load
Learn more about how to make workouts more intense at home.
Metabolic Finishers FAQs
Finishers are a great way to amp up fat loss and burn more calories as well as improve your cardiovascular endurance. Though you don't need to add them to the end of every single workout, they are a great one to do once or twice a week!
Conditioning finishers are an intense set of exercises or repetition schemes done at the end of your workout. Most often they use full-body exercises to get the biggest bang for your buck. The purpose is to exhaust you fully, increase calorie burn and improve your performance capacity long-term.
Workout finishers are typically short, about 3 to 5 minutes. The goal is to push intensity, not extend your workout.
Yes, finishers are great for increasing intensity, boosting calorie burn, and fully fatiguing your muscles at the end of a workout.
Don’t forget to pin these sweaty finishers!
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