Many health professionals are now telling their clients to work out yo-yo style.  The cardio workouts they put together aim to get your heart rate up, then slow down a bit, then up a bit higher, then slow it down a bit, and so on.  Shape, one of my favorite magazines, often comes out with cut-and-take cardio routines that blast 250+ calories in half an hour.  My problem with taking these to the gym is that I can’t read and exercise, so I never know when to go up a level, or how long to stay there.  

While on the treadmill today, I decided to give the yo-yo theory a try on my own.  It worked. I wasn’t bored (a big feat for me) and I got in a really good half hour work out.  Here’s what I did: Everything in intervals of 3 minutes.  My fitness-walk pace is 4.5, and my challenge Hill level is 10.  I always walked at this pace and hill level together. My comfortable jog pace is 6.0. I added .5 to this every time I needed to jog, until I reached a point where I could not go any faster and I came back down .5 do finish out the 3 min.    So my workout today looked like this: walk, jog 6, walk, run 6.5, walk, run 7, walk, run 7.5 for 1 min, 7 for 2 min, walk, run 6, cool down. 

Here’s a chart, in case you want to fill out your own activity levels:

This chart doesn’t look much different than the ones in Shape, I guess.  Kind of overwealming.  But to me, it’s a lot easier because of the set walk pace and the set time.  You just slowly increase your jog level. Also:  pick YOUR pace.  Do not try to do the levels I did; I may be at a different fitness level than you.  Your comfortable jog may be a 5, and your challenge hill a 6.  Stick with what will be a slight challenge for you. If you decide to give this a try, I would love to know how it goes.  Post your comments below.

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Filed under: Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts |
Article tags: jog, Rule of Three Diet, run, Shape magazine, Spicy V8 juice, walk, Yoga

Posted: September 21st, 2007 under Daily Journal, My Favorite Workouts.
Comments: 8