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I figured I’d skip the fitness update since it corresponds with this post – I’m down to 201.8 as of this morning, which is my lowest weight yet and less than two pounds from my current goal. I’d like to say was in part to the monstrous cardio routine I put myself through last night. However, I was 202.0 yesterday, so maybe not so much. I’ve contested that weight loss is about 70% diet, though hard cardio after a weekend of not eating as well is a way that has been useful in getting rid of the excess weight gain. On the plus side, it certainly shows that my endurance has increased tenfold, as there’s no way I could have done this workout even six months ago. Would you like to hear about it? Here it goes! The Basics As it stands, I’m trying to build up my endurance and tighten up my body, so I’m putting myself through a lot of steady cardio. I’ve tried doing 20-25 minutes of straight cardio on the treadmill, then 20 minutes on the elliptical, but it seems I can only hold a steady run speed of 6.5 miles per hour for 25 minutes. While being able to run close to 3 miles in 25 minutes is great and something I never would have imagined being able to do when I was younger and much heavier, I want to push myself more. I’ve done 7 miles per hour for 15 minutes at most, but I usually start fatiguing at the 10-12 minute mark. That gave me an idea – I decided to break up my cardio into ten minute chunks and alternate between the treadmill and the elliptical machines. Now I tried this on Tuesday, but I set the elliptical resistance too high and crapped out in the middle of the 3rd part. I kept going and recovered fine for the 4th and 5th parts, but I was still unimpressed by my performance. The Routine I break things up into five parts – three parts treadmill and two parts elliptical. I do a steadily descending pattern as I go along, so I can endure longer and get more calorie burn out of it. All of the parts are 10 minutes long with a 3 minute cooldown. Part 1 – Treadmill • 10 minutes at 7 mph • 1 minute at 4.5 mph (cooldown) • 1 minute at 4.0 mph • 1 minute at 3.5 mph As you can see, I’m able to get my ten minutes at 7 miles per hour in and then I can rest my legs a little bit so I can get more of a workout in. What I was trying to do before is do as much as I could at 7 mph, then kick it down to 6.5 mph for the rest of the 20 minutes. That didn’t work especially well, as my legs would be gassed from the 7 mph and I’d find myself sliding from 6.5 to 6.0 to 5.5 down to my cooldown speeds, which is walking. Part 2 – Elliptical • 1 minute at 9 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 10 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 11 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 12 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 13 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 13 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 12 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 11 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 10 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 9 resistance, moving backward • 1.5 minutes at 7 resistance, moving backward (cooldown) • 1.5 minutes at 7 resistance, moving forward The change in movement is meant to put focus on different parts of the legs. The forward motion focuses more on the quadriceps (the leg muscles in the front of the upper leg) and the calves (the leg muscles in the back of the lower leg), whereas the backward motion focuses on the hamstrings (the leg muscles in the back of the upper leg). The return to the forward motion at the end of the cooldown is for two reasons – to balance out the amount of work done on the legs, and to get the legs back to moving in a forward motion, as that’s the one used for the treadmill. Part 3 – Treadmill • 10 minutes at 6.5 mph • 1 minute at 4.5 mph (cooldown) • 1 minute at 4.0 mph • 1 minute at 3.5 mph I go down to my steady running speed on this part, which after doing 26 minutes of other cardio is a little bit tougher than jumping on the treadmill and going for 20-25 minutes, but still quite doable. Part 4 – Elliptical • 1 minute at 7 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 8 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 9 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 10 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 11 resistance, moving forward • 1 minute at 11 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 10 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 9 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 8 resistance, moving backward • 1 minute at 7 resistance, moving backward • 1.5 minutes at 5 resistance, moving backward (cooldown) • 1.5 minutes at 5 resistance, moving forward This is pretty much the same thing as before, only with a little less resistance this time. I used to try to do these while keeping my steps per minute at around 160, but I’m able to pace myself and maintain it at 140 naturally, so I do that instead. Part 5 – Treadmill • 10 minutes at 6.0 mph • 1 minute at 4.5 mph (cooldown) • 1 minute at 4.0 mph • 1 minute at 3.5 mph I go down to my warmup speed on this part, which after doing 52 minutes of other cardio is a little bit tougher than jumping on the treadmill and going for 10 minutes to warm myself up for some lifting, but my legs were still functioning at this point. Not in good shape, mind you – but functioning. Conclusion All in all, I burned 920 calories for 65 minutes of work – well, 50 minutes of work and 15 minutes of cooldown. It seems like a good routine to stick with for now, as I gauged the level of difficulty at a 6 after I hopped off the treadmill, cranked it up to 7 once I started taking the stairs down to the locker room, and had it up to about 7.5 or 8 by the time I hit the shower. I’ll admit that it was pretty brutal and didn’t really do much for my weight loss, but it certainly tested my endurance and I’m trying to build that up as much as possible for my martial arts training and to keep my general fitness level as high as I can. Suffice it to say, I definitely had a successful workout and I can't wait to do it again Tuesday! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on February 19th, 2010. |
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