Kickboxing Chic’s BodyBlog

There is this poster at one of my gyms that says “Cardio doesn’t have to be hard”. The poster is part of a series of posters for some supplement company (I won’t disclose the name as they should be embarrassed for making such a statement). When I first saw this poster, conveniently hung behind the row of treadmills, I’m like “what??!!” If cardio was easy and gave you the same results as “hard” cardio, then wouldn’t everyone be doing cardio all the time? I, personally, am not a big fan of cardio. But it is an unfortunate necessity to a lean body. I enjoy some group fitness classes (indoor cycling and bag/gloves kickboxing), but classes rarely align with my schedule. So I’m left to my own devices. In which case, I hit it hard and get it over with as quickly as I can without killing myself. As mentioned in previous posts, I’m a big proponent of HIIT. Meeting my sweat and calorie quota through a quick cardio HIIT session is usually not a problem. And with a warm-up and cool down, cardio is done and over with in about 25 minutes. Here are a few things I do to keep cardio interesting and challenging:

·         Endless versions HIIT cardio – I created several flavors of HIIT cardio. You can adjust the work/rest interval periods, resistance (stationary bikes, elliptical), incline (treadmill), and speed. There are so many factors to play with that the options are virtually endless.

·         Hit the pavement – Although I trained for and ran a marathon once, I no longer go out for a “run.” The primary reason being that I’m afraid of dogs (a dog took a bite out of the back of my hamstring several years ago while jogging). So what I do now is sprint up/down my street. We live in a cul de sac that takes a sharp incline about 2/3 of the way up. I sprint up and jog back; rinse and repeat about 10 times. There is also this very short, yet very steep hill around the corner from my house. I’ll also throw in a few sets of high knees or high skipping up this steep sucker (jog down). Now we’re talking lactic acid.

·         Vary the equipment – I alternate between the elliptical, treadmill, and stepmill. And sometimes I just put on my boxing gloves and hammer away at my punching bag. Before I know it, my hair is a sweaty mess.

·         Do plyometrics and BW exercises instead – I also get my cardio fill by putting together 5 or 6 high intensity exercises, such as box jumps, burpees, jump squats, jump lunges, jumping jacks, etc, into a circuit. Then repeat 3-4 times. I can easily maintain a 70-85% max HR, plus plyometrics can be used for strength training too (bonus!!)

With that, I completely disagree that “cardio doesn’t have to be hard.” If you want to see results and don’t have 3 hours to spend in the gym, cardio needs to be hard and challenging work.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Training, HIIT, Cardio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.