Cardio

Cardio Tabata Superset Workout

January 20, 2015 by Nicole 8 Comments

Today’s workout is a seriously sweaty one! And the best part? No burpees. You’re welcome. I took these pictures just three weeks ago—it’s crazy how much colder it’s gotten since then. You couldn’t pay me to go outside in a tank top and capris right now…

Actually, I’ve got a big trip to Australia coming up. You could most definitely pay me to go outside in a tank top and capris. Homegirl needs some spending money!

Cardio Tabata Superset Workout

For each superset, you’ll do a 4-minute tabata: 8 rounds of 20 second of work and 10 seconds of rest, alternating between the two exercises each work round. Once you’ve gone through all four supersets, start back at the top, completing a total of two rounds (= eight 4-minute tabatas total).

SUPERSET 1 | Hot Feet + Snowboarders

Hot Feet: You probably know these best as a basketball or football drill. You essentially run in place as fast as you can while in a wide-leg squat position. With your feet a bit wider than hip-width apart, squat down. Staying low, you’ll quickly run your feet up and down, staying on the balls of your feet and barely picking them off the floor (an inch or two) so that you can maintain the speed.
Snowboarders: This is essentially a rotating squat jump. Squat down, hips and butt back and down, weight in your heels. Bring your left fingertips towards the ground in front of you and look over your right shoulder (think of the stance of a snowboarder or skateboarder looking ahead). From here, you’re going to jump up and turn towards your right shoulder, rotating 180 degrees in air and landing back in a squat facing the other direction, this time bringing your right fingertips towards the ground and looking over your left shoulder. Repeat, rotating towards your left shoulder this time. A good way to think about it is you’re always looking ahead in the same direction, just changing which foot is in front.

SUPERSET 2 | Frog Stamp Push Ups + Mountain Climbers

Frog Stamp Push Ups: Start in a plank position, hands aligned under shoulders, core tight. Do a push up (you can always modify by dropping to your knees for this). Next, jump your feet up towards the outside of your hands, landing in a wide-stance crouching position, and then jump the feet quickly back to plank. Try to keep these quick! Push up, jump up, jump back, push up, jump up, jump back—no pause, keep moving.
Mountain Climbers: These are like doing high knees in a plank position. Start in a plank, hands stacked underneath shoulders, core squeezing in tight (don’t let your low back sag or your butt stick up in the air). From this position, drive one knee at a time up towards your chest, like running horizontally. The pace on these should be quick.

SUPERSET 3 | High Knees + Jump Lunges

High Knees: Maintaining good posture (don’t hunch forward!), run in place, using your core to drive your knees up high as you do. I like to hold my hands at about belly button height as a guide and drive my knees up to hit them. Keep these quick! If you have knee issues or need to modify, march in place instead of run (but still get those knees up high!).
Jump Lunges: Start in a split-stance lunge: right foot in front, ball of left foot planted on the floor behind you. Both knees should be bent to 90 degrees, front knee aligned over ankle, back knee hovering just a couple inches off the floor. From here, push off your feet to jump up in the air, switching feet in mid-air and landing back in a lunge with left foot forward and right foot planted behind. Continue, alternating feet with each jump.

SUPERSET 4 | Bicycle Crunches + Full-Body Crunches

Bicycle Crunches: Start laying on your back, hands behind your head (but not pulling on your head) and legs extended straight out, hovering off the floor a couple inches. From here, bend your left knee in, keeping the right leg extended out straight, and crunch your upper back up off the floor, twisting the right elbow across your body to meet the left knee. Repeat to the other side, fluidly moving from one side to the next, legs alternating in a pedaling motion. Don’t move so quickly through these that you aren’t extending your leg out completely straight with each rep.
Full-Body Crunches: Start in a seated position balancing on your tailbone, hands lightly on the ground by your side for support, feet lifted off the ground and torso leaning back, core engaged. Extend your legs out straight in front of you as you lean back further (feet should be hovering), and then crunch everything inward, bringing your knees into your chest and sitting up a little straighter, abs in tight.

WEARING | leggings + sweatshirt c/o Augusta Active // bra: c/o Cory Vines // tank: LF Stores // sneakers: Nike

Filed Under: Bodyweight, Cardio, Full Body, Interval Training, Superset, Tabata, Workouts

4-Minute Tabata HIIT Workout from The Fitnessista

January 15, 2015 by Nicole 19 Comments

THREE workout posts in one week?? It’s still New Year’s resolution month, so I figured the added motivation would be welcome.

Today’s workout comes to you via my lovely friend Gina from The Fitnessista. I was really excited to check out her new book, HIIT It!, because—as you’ve probably noticed by now—I love high intensity interval training. The book is great, especially if you’re a beginner. In it, Gina doesn’t just give you a proverbial filet of cod, she really teaches you how to fish. Starting with the basics, she goes over major muscle groups, what HIIT is and why it’s effective. She then shows you how to apply it to cardio workouts as well as strength training, and gives tons of sample workouts and weekly workout plans.

The tabata I’m sharing today is actually one part of a full sample workout in the book: warm-up with cardio, a full-body strength training circuit, this tabata, and then a cool down. Yesterday I had a ridiculously busy blogging and teaching day and knew I wasn’t going to make it to a fitness class, so I decided to instead slip this 4-minute HIIT workout in a few times throughout the day to give me a break from the computer. It was perfect! I ended up doing it four times throughout the workday, so even though I didn’t get a long workout in, I still felt good. That’s the whole idea behind HIIT—you don’t have to workout longer, just smarter.

Before we get to the tabata, I just wanted to add that HIIT It! also has a great index of exercises with written descriptions and accompanying pictures. Ya know, like professional photos—not this:

(Couldn’t resist posting another blooper from yesterday’s blog post—they’re just too awesomely awkward. Butterfingers!) The book then ends with a whole section on nutrition with lots of yummy recipes.

4-Minute Tabata HIIT Workout

Set an interval timer for 8 rounds of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. You’ll go through the following four exercises twice. To clarify, that’s: 20 seconds of as many high knees as you can do; 10 seconds rest; 20 seconds of as many burpees as you can do; 10 seconds rest…and so on.

High Knees: Use your core to jog in place, lifting each knee up to belly button height. I like to keep my hands in front of me and drive the knees up to hit them to hold myself accountable for really getting them high.
Burpees: Start standing, feet about shoulder-width apart. Squat down, bringing your hands to the ground by your feet and jump both feet back into a plank position. Do a push up. Quickly jump your feet back up by your hands and shift the weight into your feet, bring torso upright into a low squat position. From here, jump up, arms overhead. Land softly on your feet, sinking right back down into a squat and starting from the top.
Mountain Climbers: These are like doing high knees in a plank position. Start in a plank, hands stacked underneath shoulders, core squeezing in tight (don’t let your low back sag or your butt stick up in the air). From this position, drive one knee at a time up towards your chest, like running horizontally. The pace on these should be quick.
Squat Jumps with Rotation: Perform a squat facing one side. As you power up, jump and rotate 180 degrees so that you land facing the opposite direction, sinking right back down into a squat and repeating. Make sure you’re turning towards the opposite shoulder each time you rotate so that the legs are worked evenly.

This is an intense tabata—each exercise really gets your heart rate up! Use it as part of a longer workout or on its own when you’re having one of those super busy days.

Before I end this post, I just wanted to let you guys know of an awesome promotion ClassPass is running right now. If you’ve been on the fence about trying it, now (until Sunday evening) when you sign up using THIS LINK you’ll get a $50 Visa gift card. I use ClassPass and LOVE it. For $99/month (in some cities, it’s even less expensive) you can go to classes at a huge variety of fitness studios. You can go to each studio up to three times in a month, with the total number of classes across the board unlimited (it might not be unlimited forever, but I’m pretty sure it is until at least March). When I first started using ClassPass, it was only in New York and Boston, but now it’s in 20 cities!

Full disclosure, as part of this promotion they’re running, I would also get a $50 gift card if you sign up, so there is some selfish motivation behind this (:)), but I use CP myself and recommend it to all my fitness-loving friends, so the hype is 100% genuine. And, c’mon, you get $50, too—I gotta share the love!

Filed Under: Bodyweight, Books, Movies, Etc., Cardio, Full Body, Health & Wellness, Interval Training, Tabata, Workouts

45-Minute Treading Workout

November 23, 2014 by Nicole 7 Comments

I know this picture makes the workout look totally overcomplicated, but I swear it’s not—bear with me…

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend! I’m off to Btone in a couple hours to take a class before teaching a couple. For all you Boston peeps, Michele’s class is worth waking up early on a Sunday for—kicks my ass EVERY time. Add it to your must-try fitness list.

Anywho, I’ve got a fun cardio workout for all you gym-goes and treadmill owners. The treading class at Hilton Head Health was probably my favorite of the many varied exercise classes I tried there, so I thought it’d be fun to share one of my own creation and talk a little bit more about the fitness aspect of my stay at H3. If you missed my first post about the blogger trip to Hilton Head Health, I talked about the education component, specifically a lecture on portion control I attended.

All throughout the day at H3 there are fitness classes offered, ranging from yoga to TRX to aqua boxing in the pool. Some have capacity limits and require sign-up the day before, but for the majority of them, you can just pop into whichever ones sound appealing. That’s something I really liked about Hilton Head Health’s programming—they don’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. Yes, the majority of guests are there to lose weight, and there is guidance and encouragement to do certain classes, but there’s no drill-sergeant mentality. You make your own decisions about what you want to do.

Sarah and I at a TRX class at H3

During my stay, I tried a bunch of classes: Pilates for Flexibility, Yoga Flow, TRX Circuit, Muscle Mobility (SMR with lacrosse balls) and Treading (twice). A lot of the guests at H3 are just starting out on their road to health, and the instructors do a great job of teaching to beginners while also offering modifications for those who are more advanced in the class. As someone who’s in the industry, trust me—it’s a sign of a damn good instructor if a group of people ranging from young fitness bloggers to 60+-year-old beginners leaves a class all feeling like it was an awesome experience. So let’s slow clap it out for Camila at Hilton Head Health—her treading class had everyone sweating (and dancing).

45-Minute Treading Workout

This workout is made for the treadmill, but you could easily adapt it to another cardio machine (stationary bike, elliptical, etc.) The numbers used are for a treadmill with a 0-15 incline range, so adjust accordingly if your machine uses a different scale.

All levels can do this workout! You’ll see I use the terms walk, jog, run and sprint to describe the speed you should go—these terms will mean different speeds to different people. If you’re advanced, sprint might mean 10+mph. If you’re a newbie, sprint might mean power walking at 4+mph. Both are great! These terms represent more of an effort scale than a numerical speed value:

As you’ll see, the workout is broken up into sections. The numbers always represent incline. For speeds, I use walk, jog, run, sprint. The image at the beginning of this post is super detailed (you can print it out and bring it to the gym with you), but if you’re a treading pro, the following summary might be enough to guide you.

WARM UP | 0:00 – 3:00
At a 0 incline, do a minute of slow walking lunges (set treadmill to .5-1mph for these) then jog for two minutes.

STEADY CLIMB | 3:00 – 13:00
Maintain a steady jog-run pace throughout the 10 minutes. Every minute, you’ll change the resistance up by two points, starting at a 3 and peaking at a 15. You’ll then decrease the incline by four points each minute, returning back to a 3 incline.

CLIMBING SPEED INTERVALS | 13:00 – 17:30
Using 30-second intervals, you’ll run, sprint, and then walk (recover). Do this at a 3 incline, then a 6, then a 9.

BREAK | 17:30 – 19:00
Walk it out, grab a drink of water, catch your break. You can jog if you’re ambitious.

ROLLING HILL | 19:00 – 29:30
Maintain a steady jog-run pace the entire time. You’ll change your incline every 60 seconds climbing up to the top, staying at the top for 30 seconds. Incline changes are in increments of three and get less steep with each of the three hills: 6, 9, 12, 15 (first hill); 3, 6, 9, 12 (second hill); 0, 3, 6, 9 (last hill).

BREAK | 29:30 – 31:00
Walk it out, grab a drink of water, catch your break. You can jog if you’re ambitious.

SPEED INTERVALS | 31:00 – 36:30
These are done at a 0 incline. You recover for 30 seconds between each of the five sprints. The first two sprints are 60 seconds long and the last three sprints are 30 seconds long.

BREAK | 36:30 – 38:00
Walk it out, grab a drink of water, catch your break. You can jog if you’re ambitious.

FINAL PUSH | 38:00 – 41:00
Run for a minute each at a 10, 5, and then 0 incline.

COOL DOWN | 41:00 – 45:00
Walk for three minutes, gradually slowing it down. Finish with a minute of those slow walking lunges we started with.

Andie from Can You Stay For Dinner?, Beth from Beth’s Journey, Monique from Ambitious Kitchen, Sarah from Sarah Fit and I before our first treading class at H3. Not pictured is Lisa from Snack Girl who joined us for our second treading class the next day.

In addition to taking classes, I also got a tennis lesson (I LOVED it!) and went for a couple beautiful runs on the beach by H3. The sand there is hard so it’s perfect for running and even bike riding. If you follow me on instagram, you’ve already seen the view, but it’s just too pretty not to share again:

Have you ever taken a treading class (or something similar) before? I find running on a treadmill painfully boring alone, but in the group setting it was so fun!