Wednesday's cardio

Have I said I don't particularly care for cardio? I think so, maybe once or twice. I have found that changing things up can keep it more interesting.

I can lift weights the same old way for ages and never get bored, although I understand it is not advised, so I change things every three weeks.  My point is weight training doesn't bore me at all, cardio does.

All of us, no matter who we are and how advanced we are, can learn from other people. We can also use refreshers, it's easy to get in a rut and forget things we used to enjoy or do a while back.

I once attended a Phat Camp with Jen Hendershott, loved it!  Two and a half days of training, I learned so many new things to keep it all interesting, she does a lot of cardio! I still have all of the exercises on my torn and tattered paper as a reminder.


If Jen comes round here again I will sign up and maybe drag Stacy with me!

The other night I watched a DVD called "The Sport of Figure" and it featured Ava Cowan. She showed several exercises that she likes to use, and it reminded me of several I had forgotten. 


What I did come away with was HIIT on a bike. I used to "spin" quite a bit and stopped when I started training with SC. My main goal has always been to add muscle, I am a naturally lean person, adding muscle is not real easy for me. When I would take a spinning class he used to get in my face and say "You want to get big or you want to get small?! Pick one!"


What he meant was I was just burning up my calories on that spin bike, calories and hard earned muscle. I don't spin any longer.


But doing 20 minutes of HIIT is different, a lot different than an hour of spinning. HIIT has been proven to burn fat and spare the muscle.


According to Jonathan Ross, American Council on Exercise personal trainer of the year and author of Abs Revealed; 8 to 12 minutes of intense intervals can burn as many calories as 25 to 30 minutes of constant moderate-exertion exercise. He says: "Pick your favorite cardio machine and do one minute at a high intensity (at least a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1, with 10 being all-out effort) followed by rest or a vary low intensity (2 or 3 on the same scale) for one minute."


So what have I been doing? 5 minutes warm up  and then 20 minutes of one minute intervals, fast as I can for a minute, then recovery for a minute. Over and over until I can't go on.


It's not too difficult if that is all I am doing, like a morning when all I do is cardio because I will meet Roy in the evening. So I did it again on Friday morning. But I tried it on Saturday after my leg day...failure! I could only go 10 minutes, I was spent.


I am not concerned, If I really worked my legs hard I shouldn't be able to do this. So I finished off on the treadmill at a 15% incline.


So Sunday I trained back and I trained hard. I took it outside again, the cool air kept me going. I was able to do the 20 minutes, then an additional 20 on the stairmill. Lots of men on the courts, but they all had their shirts on!


Monday after work? Me and the bike!