I am a fitness junkie, a sneaker connoisseur, a lover of anything pink, a daily you tube user, and a certified personal trainer and group x instructor. It is my mission to show each client, gym member and class participant just what their bodies can do. My fitness philosophy is focused around "What can your body do?", changing the focus from what we look like to how our bodies perform and function. The Fitness with a Purpose Newsletter and Blog is a place where you can find tips, tools, and tactics on how to make fitness a lifestyle and maximize each workout and meal to enable you to become as fit and healthy as possible. This is also a place where I share my personal experiences with my own fitness and quest to see just what my body can do when I set a goal and do what ever is possible to achieve that goal. Consistent action produces consistent results!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Training: Cardio

Trainer's Fitness Tip for the week:

1. Increase your Cardiovascular workouts:
Since fat reduction is the common short term goal amongst my client roster, let's focus on more productive and frequent cardiovascular workouts. Since I have not been running and taking it relatively easy to avoid further damage to my knee, my body has definitely changed. My focus has been on building more lean muscle mass to ward off weight gain. I have done so successfully, however, without my daily runs and cardiovascular sessions, I have noticed that I am not as lean or svelte as I would like to be. (This is how I feel :) I too have reevaluated my exercise game plan and have come to the conclusion that I am not doing enough cardio, only intermittent bursts of running or plyometrics, nothing consistent since the injury.

What I find to be productive and successful is sweaty cardio. Cardio that gets your heart rate up right away. Cardio that remains CHALLENGING for the entire duration. Cardio that makes you feel like you are burning fat right there. Cardio workouts that make you quesition if you remembered to put on deodorant. Ahhh, I love those kinds of runs and spin classes, or sessions on the treadmill. Whether your cardio is steady state or a combination of interval training, cardiovascular sessions should range from moderately challenging to difficult, 30-60 minutes.

Bottom line, resistance training will enable us to boost our metabolism by building lean muscle mass, however, cardio will burn the fat that sits on our lean muscle mass. It also will keep our heart and lungs healthy.

This week, let's shoot for 3-5 cardiovascular workouts, 30-60 minutes.
Example Cardiovascular workouts:
*Boot camps - Urban x-training starting up again April 27th - May 15th
*Running
*Spinning
*Amy's Cardio blast - Saturdays at TL at 10am
*Shirley's Kick boxing at TL (Wednesday at 6:15) or Steph's Kick boxing at QL (Tuesday at 6pm)
*Stair Stepper at the gym
*Interval sessions on the various cardio equipment at the gym
*Long walks on Town lake or the Green belt
*Stair walking on Mt. Bonnel
*A cardio workout video - check out www.collagevideo.com

See you sweating in the gym...........extra strength is the key :
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