I told you that I’d post the week’s challenge just before so here is your Week 1 Challenge (remember this begins on Sunday):
This week you will exercise 6 days – 3 days of 30 minutes (minimum) of cardio exercise and 3 days of strength training exercise.
Some examples of cardio would be fast walking, jogging, swimming laps, dancing, kickboxing, elliptical machine, or any of 100 other exercises. This also means that you must keep your heart rate within your “Fat Burning Zone” for the entire 30 minutes. So, no, your warm up and cool down don’t count in the 30 minute time.
How do you know your “zone?” An easy calculation is to subtract your age from 220 and then multiply the result by .65 and .80. Keep your heartrate beating between these two numbers/minute and you’re in the “zone.” You can either time your heartrate per full minute or, even easier, count for 10 seconds and multiply by 6 for your result.
Eg. a 30 year old woman’s zone would be 220-30= 190x.65= 123 and 190x.85=161…her heartrateshould be 12-16 beats/10 seconds.
Strength exercise doesn’t have to be going to the gym and pumping huge dumbbells or using heavy weight machines with a belt strapped on like a bodybuilder! Exercise bands, small weights, even water bottles or milk jugs can work. Use what you have at home and spend 3 days hitting every major muscle group – shoulders, back, biceps, triceps (the back of the arms), abs, quads (front of your thighs), hamstrings (back of your thighs), glutes (your rear end) and calves. This may sound complicated but pushups, squats, lunges, bicep curls, tricep extentions, shoulder press, chest fly, crunches and calf raises will hit all of these muscle groups. It should take about 30 minutes per session depending on how many sets and reps you do of each exercise.
This gives you a basic idea of the exercises you should be doing, or make it easy on yourself, take a look at the Beachbody programs offered here and see if you don’t find one that interests you. ALL of them incorporate both strength training and cardio into them AND you get a sound diet plan as well! Personally, I am doing ChaLEAN Extreme with other cardio videos mixed in for variety (jogging, P90X, Rockin Body, Insanity, Hip Hop Abs and Turbo Jam mostly).
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Whatever you chose, pick something that you ENJOY and find interesting and fun. You want it to be a challenge but a challenge that you can find pleasure in and see yourself doing for a long time. Also, don’t forget to log your workouts into the FREE WOWY virtual gym for a chance to win up to $1000 (I have several friends who HAVE won!) at www.mercedfitclub.com.
Don’t forget that we will be meeting at Woodward Community Park on Monday mornings (9-10 a.m.) for a cardio workout together! See the Events tab for more info!
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