Getting the Most From My Workouts
Every six months my wife and I like to travel to someplace sunny. We both enjoy SCUBA diving and lying around relaxing in the sun. With the beach comes the desire to have a beach presentable physic. We constantly find ourselves rushing to get into shape a few months before our vacations. One thing I’ve been researching is how to get the most from my workouts. Wellness and fitness is a broad subject and everyone has their own experience or what works best for them. In researching how to get the most out of my workouts, I came across something for cardio called High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. This is how I use this process in my cardio workouts.
Firstly, the main goal of my exercise regiment is not to get huge and muscle bound, I simply want to be lean and look good at the beach. My workouts consist of approximately 30 minutes of weight training and 30 minutes of cardio.
I start my workouts with weight training. I like to work one muscle group each day alternating throughout the week. If we’re getting close to our vacation, I usually workout 7 days a week, doing cardio every day; if I take a break it will be weight training.
For weight training I never work my muscles to failure. Here is a quick outline of my workout routine:
Day 1: Back, Chest, Abs, HIIT (planks) before bed
Day 2: Shoulders, Triceps, and Biceps, HIIT, (planks) before bed
Day 3: No weights
Day 4: Back, Chest, Abs, HIIT (planks) before bed
Day 5: Shoulders, Triceps, and Biceps, HIIT, (planks) before bed
Day 6: Back, Chest, Abs, HIIT (planks) before bed
Day 7: No weights
The following week I’ll start with the shoulders on Monday.
The HIIT cardio training is as follows:
1. Walk on the treadmill for 2 to 3 minutes at moderate pace (around 3.5 and 4.0 on most treadmills)
2. After 2 to 3 minutes, speed up the treadmill to a jogging pace for 30 seconds (start at 7.0 or 8.0)
3. After 30 seconds of jogging, slow down to set moderate pace (somewhere between 3.5 to 4.0 as discussed before) I always make sure this is the same speed each time.
4. After one minute of moderate, I speed up the treadmill to my previous jogging pace, but this time I add.5 to the speed (so if you first did 7.0…now you are going to set it at 7.5) Sometimes I only increase by 3 depending on how I’m feeling.
5. After 30 seconds of jogging, I go back to the same set moderate pace for one minute.
6. Alternate between jogging (running at some point) and walking for 15-25 minutes…making sure that I use the same speed each time, but increase to jogging (eventually I’ll be sprinting) speed by.5 until I cannot run any faster for 30 seconds.
The main idea of the HIIT training is to get the most cardio benefit in the least amount of time. This routine has worked wonders for me, although you sometimes get some weird looks from all the other people in the gym. They key is to feel the flush feeling in your body as quickly as possible.
Mail this post
Leave a Reply 
