Sadly, workouts are rarely like sundaes

Every once in a while, I have a conversation that reminds me that I need to review the basics of something.  Someone recently asked me about working more on cardio.  This person basically forgot how interval training works, so I’m going to go over it for everyone.

What we are doing when we do cardio training is teaching our hearts and lungs to recover more quickly from exertion.  We do need some base cardio endurance for things like an unexpectedly long or steep hike, or surprise stairs.  We do want to be able to finish the dog walk without passing out.  One way to get that basic endurance is to do those things.  Walk for half an hour.  Hop on a bike or spin bike or elliptical trainer.  Go for a run.  This is called steady state cardio training.  We go at about the same speed for the whole time we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing.  It is a great way to begin, but not a great way to keep going forever.  Even people who do endurance events like century rides and marathons don’t just ride or run forever and think they’ve got enough training.

 

What we want to do, once we have enough oomph built up to do maybe fifteen minutes of steady-state cardio like brisk walking, is add intervals.  Intervals are short bursts of more intense work sprinkled across the workout.  If the workout were a sundae, intervals are the jimmies.

 

If we are working out on gym equipment, chances are that the machine already has a built-in interval program.  Chances are it is also not optimal, but it is an all right place to start.  A lot of those pre-programmed interval workouts have intervals that are too long—two of three minutes of harder work followed by the same amount of recovery.  Again, this is not a bad way to try interval training, but there is an easier way.

 

Whatever cardio thing we are doing, once we are warmed up, we want to add short (about a minute) bursts of intense activity to them.  So if we are fairly new to working out and we are doing a neighborhood walk for cardio, we go at our usual brisk pace until we’re warmed up.  Then we go as fast as we can to the end of the next block.  We slow back down until our heart rate and breathing recover, and then we do it again.  That minute is important, because in a minute we use up all our readily available quick-burn energy.  The other energy pathways available to us aren’t as easy to access and take more time.  We want to use the quick stuff and then give it a chance to refuel before burning it again.

 

The science shows that this kind of training improves general cardio fitness faster than steady state endurance cardio.  That means that when we do interval training, we are automatically making that steady state cardio easier.

 

Short version:  warm up; do a fast minute; do a slower minute or two; do a fast minute; do a slow minute or two; repeat until time to cool down; cool down; rest.

Maybe I'm Not the Only One Who Forgot That Part?

A long time ago now, my older kid watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the first time.  He was my first child and I tried to be careful to avoid exposing him to inappropriate things as much as I could (yes, this is hilarious, in retrospect, but at the time I was very young and earnest and innocent).  Having played back what I could remember of the movie in my head, I thought it would be fine, that he’d laugh, and we’d all had a good time.  I totally forgot the scene when Galahad gets to Castle Anthrax.  There are many things one does not necessarily want one’s child to yell excitedly at kindergarten and at least one of them occurs in that scene.  But I did not come here to tell a funny anecdote about my kid.  I mention the scene because later in the scene, when the other knights come to rescue Galahad, he asks if he can have just a little peril.  Which in context is hilarious.

In fitness, we, too, want a little peril, although maybe not from the activities Galahad was contemplating at the time.  (One would have to be VERY vigorous to get a workout out of that, frankly.)  What I mean is that we don’t want to be too comfortable in our workouts.

 

Now, I spend a fair amount of time making sure that people are comfortable in their workouts.  This is because many people have exercise anxiety, or a cultural expectation that workouts have to make them feel like dying, or concern about an old injury, or the like.  Workouts need to be a normal part of our existence, not some terrifying visitation of punishment.

 

However, if workouts are too comfortable, we don’t grow from them.  We need just a little peril.  We need to have a certain amount of doubt that we can, in fact, finish that last rep.  We need to push ourselves a little past where we are confident.  Not so far that we get hurt or even that we trigger large fears, but a little.

 

The underlying principle here is that we need a particular kind of peril, called eustress, to make positive adaptations.  Eustress is the kind of stress that is good for us.  It’s just difficult enough that we can manage it, but not so hard that it kills us (or gives us Black Knight type flesh wounds).

 

Go play.  And play hard.  With just a little peril.

Monday Workout: Sideways

We’re doing some work in the frontal plane this week because sometimes life goes sideways.  Three rounds.

 

jacks	30
bench press	20
deadlifts	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
YTA	10
skier jump	30
rows	20
brains	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Sumo Squat to High Pull

Today, the Amazing Stickie is demonstrating the sumo squat to high pull.  She begins standing with her feet fairly wide apart and externally rotated from the hip.  She holds two medium dumbbells as if she has just done a front row.  From there, she bends her knees into a sumo squat and lowers the dumbbells toward the floor (not quite touching!).  Then she returns to the starting position.  Sets of 20 or 30 are good.

Both!

Unsurprisingly, I read and watch a fair amount of stuff about fitness.  I do this so that my clients don’t have to unless they want to and because I like to learn new stuff.  Sometimes the new stuff I learn is that I already know stuff.

I recently spent an hour watching a webinar about combining Pilates and weight training.  I thought:  hey, I’ll get some new insights!  Nope.  It was a lot of what I’ve been doing all this time where I use Pilates (sometimes in stealth mode) with my personal training clients to build more control or proprioception and I use my knowledge of weight training to make sure that my Pilates clients get appropriately challenged.  Doing both Pilates and weight training, and sometimes both together, is better than doing either one alone because bodies need both strength and precision, both relaxation and challenge.

 

We grow where we work.  How can I help?

How long?

I am making a nuisance of myself to my friends by asking them what they would like to know about fitness.  One friend, and presumably more than one, would like to know how long it takes to get results when we start working on our fitness.

It depends.

 

Which is a crappy answer, but be patient with me for a moment.

 

Some kinds of fitness activities make us feel better basically immediately.  We get a mood burst on the very first day we begin walking.  Most of us will notice a pretty good improvement in our cardio within a week or two assuming we aim for five or six days per week of about half an hour of work.

 

Weight training can take a little longer.  We get faster results if we work two or three times per week than we do if we have one workout per week.  If we’re doing two weight workouts per week, we should notice that we can increase the weights in about a month.  Changes in body size can also occur in that time period, but results will vary depending on what we’re eating.

 

So the slightly nuanced answer is that, with reasonable effort, we will begin to feel better somewhere between right away and in a month.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Coordination

This week we’re doing some exercises that challenge our coordination.  Three rounds.

 

step ups	30
renegade rows	20
reverse lunge twist	10
squat raise	30
reverse flies	20
front raise	10
clean and press	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10