Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Just 9 minutes to a Better You

Most of the time I only work out 3 days a week. In those workouts I use some combination of body-weight and other forms of resistance training in a fast-paced fashion that, as they say, kills two birds with one stone (muscle building/toning and cardio training all in one).

But sometimes on the day between workouts I'll do some from of interval training as well. Such was the case today after dropping off our son for Show Choir practice before school.

I simply stopped off at the high school/college track and did the following workout:

First, as always, a warm-up routine made up of simple bodyweight exercises such as prisoner squats, leg raises, lunges, pushups, planks, stickups, waiter's bows, etc.

Then I adjusted my gymboss timer to 18 seconds and 27 seconds respectively. The timer beeps after each of those intervals, meaning it first beeps after 18 seconds, then after 27 seconds and then repeats the process.

So, I simply ran at 3/4 speed on the track for 18 seconds, walked for 27 seconds and then ran for 18 seconds and walked for 27 seconds, etc. I did 12 rounds (the first round was at 1/2 speed).

As it turned out, every 3 rounds equaled about one lap around the track. So I basically ran 1 mile, plus a one-lap walk at the end to cool down. And the actual workout was--get this--only 9 minutes!

Yep, 12 multiplied by 45 seconds (18 second run and 27 second rest) equals just nine minutes.

Even if you alternate walking fast and walking slow instead of running and walking, you can have a great workout with minimal time investment.

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