Central Bucks Family YMCA

Make the most of your workout
By:  Lindsay Peters, Spinning and AMPed instructor

Lindsay Peters

So all you have is an hour a day to workout?

Make it count by increasing your intensity and challenging your body like never before. I want to preface this by saying that if you are able to concentrate on reading a book or magazine, you are probably not working hard enough. Sometimes we get the idea that in order to become fit we need to spend hours each day at the gym.

This is the case if:
1. You are doing the same old routine and your body has gotten used to it and hit plateau
2. Your intensity remains the same
3. You don’t eat clean and watch each thing you put into your body (you can never out-train a poor diet…sorry!)

I see a lot of people doing the same workout they’ve done for years while adding more time here and there in hopes of seeing some changes. We then realize we are spending 3 hours at the gym to no avail. The good news is that if you increase intensity you can actually decrease your time. Recent studies have shown that high intensity interval training (HIIT) results in more fat loss and up to 50% more calorie burn than steady state cardio in only half the time when following a clean diet. It also has the ability to drastically increase VO2 max which is the maximum amount of oxygen one can take in during exercise. This will increase your body’s endurance and utilization of oxygen during exercise. It also increases the resting metabolic rate which is the amount of calories the body needs to function at rest. Here are some tips to switch up your workouts:

Treadmill: Increase the incline to at least 5% to perform sprints at <8mph. Work up to this speed and incline if you are new. Perform sprints for 30 s. on and 1 minute rest for 20-30 minutes. Adjust your incline and speed for greater gains. During the 1 minute rest periods walk on the incline at 4mph or take the incline down and keep a jog at 6.5mph.

Elliptical: Set it to manual with 10 incline and 10 resistance to warm up. Adjust your speed based on the resistance. Gradually add resistance up to 14 while trying to keep the same leg speed for intervals. Do not go below a resistance of 10.

Step Mill:  PLEASE stand up straight! Did you ever notice it’s harder when you’re not leaning? The handlebars are for safety and balance, not for hanging on. It takes the weight off the legs so you are not working them as hard. The step mill is a leg/cardio workout so let’s treat it as one and get the weight off the arms. Perform intervals of 100 steps at level 8-9 followed by 100 steps at level 18-20 for about 20 minutes. This will really get your heart rate up!

Plyometrics: Add some plyometrics to your weight training routine or your circuits to get the heart rate up. Don’t know what plyometrics are? Stop me in the fitness center and ask or stop in on of my morning AMPed classes and you will learn all you need to get the results you want. Don’t be intimidated by the name…we welcome all fitness levels.

Train Hard!
Lindsay Peters, Spinning and AMPed instructor

For information on group fitness program at the contact, Valerie Tanner, 215-348-8131, x1140.

Brochure for AMPed