One round
| Exercise | Reps |
|---|---|
| Pull-up | 5 |
| Push-up | 10 |
| Squat | 15 |
Free program
The Cindy WOD: 20 minutes of pull-ups, push-ups and squats
This is the workout that became famous through Tom Holland's Spider-Man training, and its real name is Cindy: a 20-minute AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats on a loop, as many rounds as you can. There are no levels and no built-in progression. It's a benchmark you repeat every few weeks. Your score is completed rounds plus leftover reps.
The workout, exercise by exercise
Nothing unlocks here. Your score is completed rounds plus the leftover reps of the round you were in: 12 rounds + 7 reps. And since a round is 30 reps, that score also reads as one total, which is what makes two attempts comparable: 367 reps beats 12+3 and loses to a clean 13 rounds.
What Cindy actually is
Twenty minutes. A running clock. Five pull-ups, ten push-ups, fifteen squats. When the squats are done you go back to the bar and start again. That’s it until time is called.
There are no programmed rests: if you stop, you stop at the cost of your score. That’s the whole rulebook, and it’s exactly why this workout has been one of the world’s most-used benchmarks for years. Anyone can do it. Almost nobody does it well.
Why it has no levels
Every other Tatakae program is a progression: four levels, each unlocked by hitting a mark. Not this one.
A benchmark works precisely because it never changes. Scale the reps and two attempts stop being comparable, which strips the number of any meaning. The whole point of Cindy is being able to look at your score from two months ago and know, with nothing to argue about, whether you improved.
Your progression isn’t in the workout. It’s in what you train between attempts.
Pacing it: the mistake almost everyone makes
The first rounds of Cindy are easy. That’s the problem.
Most people go out at a pace they could hold for five minutes, rip through four rounds, and by round six become a person staring at a pull-up bar without getting on it. Rounds seven through fifteen are where the score is decided, and arriving there with fried lats cuts them in half.
The practical rule: break the pull-ups before you need to. If your plan is five unbroken until you can’t, your plan is to fail on round five. Starting at 3+2 from round one feels slow and almost always yields more total rounds.
Push-ups, same idea: a sustained 6+4 beats ten unbroken that become four from halfway on.
The squats are your rest. Don’t do them fast, do them continuously.
The form the camera won’t let you skip
Pull-up: chin over the bar at the top, arms extended at the bottom. Half reps are the first thing to appear when fatigue does, and the first thing to stop counting.
Push-up: chest down, body in a line. Sagging hips and a raised backside are the two classic ways to do push-ups that merely look like push-ups.
Squat: hip below the knee, fully standing at the top. Half squats from rushing are the fastest way to inflate a score that’s then useless for comparing against yourself in two months.
Where to put the phone
This is the most demanding workout in the catalog when it comes to framing, because the three exercises happen in very different positions: hanging vertically, lying face down, and standing.
Set the phone side-on, two or three metres back, far enough that both the bar and the floor in front of it fit in frame. If the app loses sight of you it says so out loud, so you can fix it without stopping the clock.
Full reps, not fast reps
Cindy comes from CrossFit, where a round counts if the judge says it counts. Here the camera is the judge, and that changes one thing: the range has to be complete or the rep doesn’t count.
That’s a practical difference, not a moral stance. In the last five minutes of an AMRAP your body starts negotiating on its own: the chin stops an inch short of the bar, the chest stops a hand’s width off the floor, the squat stops halfway down. Those reps exist in your head and in your fatigue, but not in your score. Tatakae doesn’t count them, and that’s exactly why your number is worth comparing against yourself two months from now.
One honest caveat: the app measures range, not style. A kipping pull-up that reaches the top counts the same as a strict one. If you’re used to comparing CrossFit scores, keep that in mind the other way round too: kipping inflates rounds, and your score here will probably be lower than what you’d see in a box. Lower, and more yours.
What to train between one Cindy and the next
If your score stalls, it’s nearly always the upper body. Pull-ups are the bottleneck for ninety per cent of people, push-ups the runner-up.
0 → 10 Pull-ups and 0 → 50 Push-ups exist for exactly this: raising your pulling and pressing ceiling. Four to six weeks of work there and the same Cindy hands you two or three more rounds without you having changed anything about your pacing.
Frequently asked questions
How many rounds of Cindy is a good score?
Between 8 and 12 rounds is a solid result for someone training at home regularly. Under 8 means you're starting out, which is a perfectly normal place to be. Past 20 rounds is competitive territory, and it requires that pull-ups aren't your bottleneck, which for most people they are.
What if I can't do 5 pull-ups unbroken?
Break them up. Nobody does five in a row past round six anyway, so splitting them 3+2 from the very first round usually produces more total rounds than going hard and stalling under the bar by round four. If you can't do a single pull-up yet, Your First Pull-up is where to start.
How often should I repeat Cindy?
Every four to six weeks. It's a test, not a workout. Repeating it weekly leaves no room for the training in between to turn into rounds. The training between tests is where pulling strength and endurance actually grow. Cindy just tells you whether it worked.
Why do my arms give out long before my legs?
Because pull-ups and push-ups share pulling and pressing muscle, while the squats are close to active rest by comparison. That imbalance is the design: fifteen squats are there to give your upper body a breather without letting you stop.
Should I go out fast or hold a pace?
Hold a pace, nearly always. Cindy punishes a fast start more than almost any other AMRAP: the first three rounds feel free and the bill arrives on round seven. Pick a pace you could hold for twenty minutes and don't change it until the last three.
Is this Tom Holland's routine?
Yes, it's the workout that became famous through his Spider-Man training and has circulated as "Tom Holland's routine" ever since. Its actual name is Cindy and it long predates that: it's a classic CrossFit benchmark. Neither the actor nor CrossFit is affiliated with this app or endorses it. It's here because it's an excellent test and because its three exercises are ones the camera can count.
Train The Hero Circuit without keeping count
The whole workout is above, and it never changes. What the app adds is the clock and the count: it times the 20 minutes, counts every rep, moves you on to the next exercise on its own, and remembers the score you have to beat next time.
iPhone · No wearables, no sensors · Free program