Summary: Morning cardio and evening workouts.
Cardio: The plan calls for at least 30 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning, before first meal, at least 4/week. Basically, I just planned on doing it every M-F, but if there was one day that I had an early meeting, I skipped a day. So you plan to do it every day, but you have a built-in slack allowance of one day per week. Also, you vary the cardio acivity daily, so you never do the same machine or activity on two consecutive days.
I recommend you lay out your workout clothes the night before, so that when you wake up, you can just fall out of bed and slip right into your clothes, drink your water, and you're out the door.
Watch less TV, go to bed sooner at night. Mandatory 8 hours sleep. If you get to bed late, you have to reset your alarm for 8 hours before you wake. No morning snoozing, unless you wake up before the alarm. Snoozing is a big time-waster. Instead of setting your alarm for 6:00 and snoozing until 6:30, set your alarm for 6:30 and get up immediately. Why have precious potential sleeping time interrupted by an alarm? ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITED: setting your alarm for less than 8 hours continuous sleep. (drink only water before and during cardio, no supplements).
Mix up your cardio activity to increase variety and prevent boredom: some days have 30 min. steady state, other days do a random or interval. The following are some recommended activities for weekday morning cardio:
Toward the end of the program, I started increasing the duration of the cardio. I started the contest doing 30 minutes, but gradually increased to where I was doing sometimes 50 minutes or 1 hour on the final week of the contest.
I used a heart rate monitor while doing cardio. This was useful in determining how hard I was working, and also to gauge improvements in cardiovascular conditioning. At the beginning of the program, I did a 30-minute treadmill walk at 3.0mph and 15% incline. My heart rate settled at about 150bpm in the first 5 minutes, then gradually increased to just over 170 at the end. At the end of the contest, I was able to complete 1 hour of walking at 15% incline at a speed of 3.5mph maintaining my heart rate below 170bpm.
I maintained my heart rate in the 150-170 range for most of my treadmill running, incline walking, and stepping. However, I also did biking and rowing at a lower heart rate: 140-160. I discovered that there is a lower peak heart rate for aerobic activities where your body position is not as upright. So don't be alarmed when you cannot achieve the same heart rate with the same perceived effort for different activities.
Exercise style: The majority of your cardio sessions should be a steady-state pace of at least 30 minutes. Get your heart rate up to 140-150, and maintain a steady pace. our heart rate will increase gradually through the session. Some pieces can be more intense than others. At the end of your workout, a hard session will have your heart rate around 180. This type of session will train your cardiovascular system to increase its capacity. It is important to do an easy workout the day after a hard workout so that your heart can recover.
Some days, especially after a hard cardio workout the previous day, you just want to do a recovery workout. This is a steady state piece, but your heart rate only goes up to 150-160. These recovery workouts are imprtant. It gets the blood flowing to recovering muscles.
Some days you may want to vary the intensity throughout the workout. For examples, do a one-minute interval followed by 2 minutes of easy pace. Repeat 10 times. Your heart rate should go up to 170-180 at the end of each interval, and you should recover to under 140 before the start of the next interval.
Weekend activity: You should do an extra long activity on the weekends: either Saturday, Sunday, or both. You can do a long hike up a mountain, or hike with a pack. You can also go on a bike ride. These should be at least an hour, and can be any time of the day. You should eat before these activities.
Evening strength and conditioning: one hour of intense physical activity: weight training, plyometrics, hill runs, sprints, intervals, explosive sports, etc. I don't care what kind of physical activity you do, as long as it is intense, and lasts about an hour. You can do any of the following classes: any martial arts/self defense/tae-bo/kickboxing/boxing/grappling/judo class is good. Some are 90 minutes, but usually then they include a less intense warm up and cool down. You can do any physical activity class.
Lifting: one hour 4 days/week, during the evening. Alternatively, when the gym is closed, I would do some other strength or explosive activity, like hill running, intervals, calisthenics, or plyos. I divide my workouts into four categories: pull, legs, push, and core. Many exercise routines suggest doing "abs" every day, but I like to treat my abs like any other bodypart, hitting them hard once a week.
I usually start with a multi-joint movement, then other free weight double-joint movements and then the more isolative finishing exercises at the end.
Pull day: an olympic pull movement such as a power clean or snatch, followed by rowing and pulldown movements. Do some shoulder shrugs. Finish with biceps.
Leg day: start with squat and lunge movements, follwed by leg presses. Then do leg extensions and curls, ab- and adduction, and calf and tibialis (shins; the front of the lower leg).
Push day: start with overhead presses or push-presses, followed by bench or incline press. Go to dumbbell presses or machine presses. Then go to pec and delt work: flyes and shoulder raises. Go to pullovers. Finish with triceps and rotator cuff exercises.
Core (torso) day: Start with freeweight deadlifts, straight-leg deadlifts and/or good mornings. Try some upright twists or Russian twists while holding a stick (beginner) or a plate (advanced). Use a Swiss ball with feet held by a spotter or fixed under a weight machine to do back, sode, and abdominal (front) hyperextensions. Do the same on the back hyperextension machine. Do leg raises and all the lower back and ab machines. Do the Nautilus rotary torso machine. Finish with the (4-way) neck machine.
Weekends: time for rest and relaxation, if you worked hard during the week. However, if you slacked, the weekend is time to do your makeup workout. The weekend is also time for a major activity like a day hike or long bike. When you do a long weekend hike or bike, of duration greater than one hour, you are allowed to have a morning meal before.
Quick guides to memorize:
Weight training exercise order: multi-double-single.
Time to workout: on the 6s (6am & 6pm).
Last modified 08Mar03 comments
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