It’s been a little over two months now since I started my fitness routine. I’m pleased to say that I’ve been able to, with only a brief 5-day interruption due to being ill, hit the gym at least 5 nights a week. There was a short period of time when I was hitting it up every day, but I soon learned that your body needs rest. Breaking up the week into one or two day routines with a one day break has really helped. So many times in our quest to get fit we push ourselves too much – and forget that in order to build muscle our muscles need a day (or even two!) to repair themselves.
One thing I’ve noticed lately is that despite doing some rather intense workouts – especially cardio workouts – that they are becoming easier and I’m not exerting myself like I was in the beginning. I can easily do a 3.5mph @ 10% incline without getting my heart rate above 125. When I first started something like that would have shot my heart rate up into the high 140’s and I’d have to back down a little because I knew that it was too much. Not anymore – now I find it’s not only easier, but that I can recoup much faster.
Of course this is a good thing – it means my cardio system is getting in better shape. My resting heart rate has dropped and my body is building up the muscle that let’s me do more while not wearing myself out as much. My heart muscles are strengthening which means I can do more work while spending less energy. Nothing wrong with any of that!
This also means it’s time to take it to the next level. If I continue along at this rate I’ll be doing my body good – but I won’t gain more muscle and I’ll basically plateau. Who knew I’d ever get to the point where I would have to worry about not working myself hard enough!
So I’ve introduced a few things to help me get to the next level. First, I’m moving away from a “steady state” cardio workout where I’d chose an incline and stay with it and now moving towards a variable workout. Increasing the incline throughout the workout, with periods of rest in there where I bring the incline down. I’m also varying the speed – starting out at around 3.0, going to 3.5 and then peaking around 4.0 to 4.1mph. There are numerous studies that show that this type of interval training is very good for you and in fact can help you build more muscle and expend more calories in the long run than just doing a steady state workout.
Speaking of studies, I ran across this article yesterday about how intense sessions of interval training can really benefit you and could possibly mean you can get the benefits of doing longer workouts in shorter periods of time. It’s an interesting read and has a lot of good points. I know after I took a week off from the gym due to being under the weather I actually was able to go back and felt better than ever before. I credit some of that with giving my body time to repair all of my muscles while I was resting instead of constantly pushing myself without letting them fully repair. I’ve even read some articles that suggest every month or two you should take an entire week off just to let your body rebuild itself fully.
I’m willing to try anything once – so I’ll be incorporating more intensity into the workouts in the coming weeks and let you know what happens. I’ve also got some exciting news that I’ll share next week as well as a few new pictures of me so you can judge for yourself how things are going.
Keep motivated!
Photo Credit: sportsandsocial via Flickr.
One of the observations I’ve made is that there are a lot of people who do strength training who believe in spending a lot of money on expensive protein and vitamin shakes. Call me old fashioned, but paying $50 for a jar of powder just doesn’t top my list of fun things to do. Luckily one of my favorite foods provides a lot of the vitamins and protein I need and is available for just a few dollars in any grocery store – peanut butter! 
