Stuck in an exercise rut, get ready to SWEAT

The late great comedian George Burns liked to say “If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself”. George lived to 100 years old. To shed some light on the average person, a recent article by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) stated that overweight and obesity affects more than 66% of the adult population and is associated with a variety of chronic diseases. These numbers are just staggering. Although it is true that some individuals are blessed with good genes, and no matter how unhealthy their lifestyle is, they will live to an old age. But for the rest of us who are concerned with the quality of our health and management of our weight, exercise is one of the keys. For overweight and obese adults to improve their health, the ASCM recommends a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. For long term weight loss it is recommended to do 200 – 300 minutes per week of moderate physical activity.

Two of the most common objections I get from people regarding exercise are “I do not have any time to exercise” and “exercise is boring”. First, let me say that a well balanced exercise program incorporates aerobic exercise, strength training exercise, and exercises to improve flexibility. When it comes to your aerobic workouts, I have the perfect solution to the above two objections; interval training. If you are in any of my exercise classes or are a Personal Training client of mine at the YMCA, you already know I am all about getting the most out of a workout with the least amount of time. Interval training, which includes variations such as Fartlek training and the Tabata Protocol are methods of exercising that will allow you to get more work done, more fat burned, and more improved fitness with less time. In addition, these exercise techniques will get you unstuck from a boring exercise rut and revitalize your aerobic workouts. Interval training will (get ready for some clinical sounding stuff) improve your aerobic capacity, the ability of your body to remove oxygen from the air and transfer it through your lungs and blood and on to your muscles. You’ll also raise your anaerobic threshold, the point at which the body can no longer meet its demand for oxygen and anaerobic metabolism is increased. All in all, you’ll be able to work out harder and longer. You’ll burn more calories and fat while adding more challenge and interest to your workouts. One study illustrates just how effective interval training is. Two groups were compared, one group did 90 minutes of a long slow workout staying within there aerobic training zone. The second group did a 20 minutes workout consisting of 4 minutes of active rest with 3 seconds of a high intensity interval. Guess what, the 20 minute interval group made better gains in fitness inprovement as well as burning more calories than the 90 minute group.

Interval training is simply varying the intensity within a workout. You add short bouts of higher intensity that you could not sustain throughout the exercise session. You get a nice payout for adding a little extra effort. You can do this at any fitness level. Here is one example, walk for five minutes, then speed walk (or run) for one minute, repeating throughout your workout. You can do this with almost any aerobic routine, run, bicycle, elliptical, you name it. You can change the spacing of the intervals as well. The goal is to try and increase the intensity level and the length of time of the interval as the weeks go by. Let’s say on a scale of 1 to 10, you walk at an exertion level of 5. For 20 to 30 seconds, move up to a 7. Then go back down to walking at 5, this is called recovery or active rest. This was one interval. Within the next few weeks increase the intensity from 7 to 8 and increase the length from 30 seconds to 45 seconds. Remember to always warm up thoroughly before and cool down after your exercise session for 3 to 5 minutes. Now get out there and have some fun exercising.

Have a great workout,

Stuart