Run for your Life

Cardio, cardio, cardio!  That's the name of the game to burn through that fat right?  Wrong.  Now, before you think I've been standing in front of the microwave too long without my tin foil hat, just hear me out.  I am not telling you cardio is bad, I'm just saying that excessive cardio is counter productive and could be slowing down your slim down.  Now I know what you are thinking, "This looney woman runs 13 miles, voluntarily, more than once and she's telling me I do too much cardio?!  I might as well stop reading now."  That first statement is true.  I do run.  A lot more than most of the people who give this blog the time of day, but I don't spend all of my time running and I alter my workout depending on whether or not I'm actually training for a distance race.  So, let's get to the real issue today.  How to use cardio to compliment your workout, not be the bulk of it.

We are victims of evolution.  Our ancestors spend a good chunk of their day using valuable energy searching for food sources.  When they finally did eat, their bodies held on to as much of that as possible, storing it up for what could be another significant chunk of time before the next meal.  We have 21st century, first world problems now, but like anything in evolution, our bodies have not fully adapted to letting go of that extra fat it's storing for "hard times".  The answer to this predicament is twofold:  Eat more often (which I will dive into detail more in the next installment of my madness) and do more strength training, with cardio sprinkled in.  If you eat every 2-3 hours, your body will be less likely to go into starvation mode and want to store those calories.  If you limit your cardio, your body is also less likely to hold on to what you eat for the long haul.  So what can you do to get out of the cardio rut?  Well let me share a few tips.  You see, I was a victim of the cardio mantra for quite sometime and the last 10 lbs (which eventually melted off when I tried this) were very stubborn.  Here is what I did to break through the cardio plateau.

First, get off the elliptical.  Seriously.  If you've been on there for more than 30 minutes, get off.  The longer you stay, the more your body will just want to store fuel to gear up for a big hunt that is never going to happen.

Let me paint you a picture:

You arrive at the gym.  Do not stop at the Cardio Mecca.  Instead, take your fine self over to the free weights (or if you are still uncomfortable with those, the machines will be fine).

Pick out 9 separate strength training exercises for this day.  (I usually did one day for upper body, one for lower).  They can include pushups, curls, tricep dips, flies, etc.  Now I have the tendency to walk into the gym and immediately feel overwhelmed.  This can lead to some serious ADD on my part and I would often resort to jumping on the Elliptical.  You may find my method of writing down your exercises on a post it note before you go very helpful to combat this problem.  To be honest, my gym bag still has about 25 colorful post-it notes I can cycle through when I've got a bad case of the "Oooh shiny things!".

Make the BOSU ball your friend.  Try standing on the BOSU while doing curls, this lets you work your core at the same time.  Now, do three different exercises in succession, quickly.  Repeat three times.  Try not to take too long of a break between them, you want to keep that heart rate up.   Take a brief break for water at the end of the third set then go on to your second set of three.  All 9 exercises should take you about half an hour.  Feeling beastly yet?  You should be.  But you aren't quite finished.  Now it's time to do the beloved cardio.

Go find an open treadmill and get ready to get your sprint on.  (If your knees aren't quite up to this yet, you can do the same sort of workout on an ARC trainer or elliptical machine)

I know you are tired but give this all you've got left.  You are 15 minutes from post workout glory.

Spend the first 1:30 at a jog/slow run pace (fast walking is OK too if you are a beginner).  At the 1:30 mark, sprint (or jog/run if you are a beginner) for 30 seconds then return to your beginning pace.  Repeat this sprint every 1:30 until that timer says 15 minutes.  

Congratulations.  You've just done some High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and are on your way to breaking out of the cardio rut.  Now do a nice 5 minute cool down, stretch out, and hit the showers. Seriously, go shower. You're drenched and smelly :).