Exercise Question
 

I am really having a hard time fitting my exercise in before work in the morning, and I have a question for the experienced workout people.

Instead of doing cardio and weights in the morning
could I do 1/2 hr cardio before work
1/2 walk at lunch and do weights after dinner????

Or should I wait till after my weights to have dinner which would mean I was eatting dinner at 8:30 and I go to bed at 9:30???

Thanks for the help.

I dont work out in the morning, and Im stilling showing progress :) so If you cant fit it into your schedual, do it later.

Just make sure your last meal is 3hrs before your cardio.

You should not split up your cardio (20 minute areobic solution, if you're following BFL), but go ahead and take a walk at lunch :)

As I dont know more about your routine I cant help more. Are you doing "by the book" Body for Life or are you on another plan?

Tidey

No I am not doing the BFL, I know it is a good program but I am just eatting 5 smaller meals contaning protien, carb and fat lots of veggies and some friut. I have been trying to do 30 - 45 min of cardio then my weights but just don't have the time in the morning so I was hoping to do just the 30 min cardio before breaky, walk at lunch for 15-30 min then weights, when my son as at Tae class which is at 7pm so I have to eat at 5-5:30 or 8:30???

Thanks

Well if it works for you then go right ahead :) No reason why it shouldnt be effective :D

I was just confused about wanting to split up the 20MAS. Keep us posted on your progress!

Tidey

Hi HockeyChic -

I'm thinking that the whole point of doing the cardio is to do it INTENSELY - IMO I don't think walking is doing a whole lot for you, body shaping wise. Heart-health, yes, losing inches, no.

My exercise time is at 1:00 pm in the afternoon after I drop off my twins to Kindergarten - I'm following BFL so eat at 7 am and 10 am, then do my workout, then eat again at about 2:30 pm.

You may want to check out the BFL book at the library - he doesn't recommend doing cardio and weights on the same day - probably because it takes too long (45 min weights plus 20 mins cardio) and probably because you're working really, really hard on this program and it would kill you!

Instead of trying to do everything every day, you may want to devote your limited time to doing one thing really crazy intensely -whether that's doing walk/run intervals, cardio machines at your gym, whatever, then on alternative days do your weights.

BethO

Summing up - it's not the QUANITITY, but the QUALITY of your cardio time that is key here...

If you can't get your mitts on the BFL book for whatever reason, well, there's lotsa good stuff on the 'net...how 'bout this from Krista Scott Dixon's site:

http://www.stumptuous.com/fartlek.html - here's the start of the article...

Originally Posted by :
Hey, what's so funny about the word "fartlek"? You kids just quit laughing. I said quit it!! Stop laughing right now or I'll turn this car right around then you'll all be sorry!!!

Seriously (quit snickering, you in the back, or else), fartlek training is Swedish for "speed play" ("fart" = speed; "lek" = play, which makes one wonder... do Swedish cops give tickets for farting?). It was originally developed by and for runners, as a looser alternative to their highly structured timed interval training. I use it here more broadly to refer to any combination of high and low intensity work. I also use "interval training" as a synonym for fartlek, although the two are not precisely the same. But I fartlek in the general direction of anyone who complains about my inaccurate terminology, ha ha.

Why interval or fartlek training at all? A few reasons come to mind. First, fartlek is extremely effective for our purposes as a fat loss and general conditioning tool. Interval training has been shown to be the most effective fat burning form of cardio, even more effective than either high or low intensity aerobic training. The exact mechanism of how this works is still unclear, since interval training does not burn as many calories as the other two methods, but it is thought that interval training creates a significant oxygen debt, which signals to the body to preferentially burn fat after the workout. In Tremblay's 1994 study on interval training, it was found that small amounts of interval training were greatly superior in terms of fat loss to much longer periods of low-intensity cardio.

The second reason to do fartlek is that it is fun! If you're sick of bland monotony on the stairmaster, or endless boring rounds of the local track, then this is for you! Fartlek is both a great mental and physical challenge. Since it is very adaptable, you can make it as gentle or as arduous as you like, though I warn you: even at the "crybaby" level of difficulty, this is still a tough workout. But, if you've learned anything at all from reading this site, it's that tough is good! Tough gets results!!

Originally, as I said, fartlek was developed for runners. However, the principle of fartlek can be applied to a variety of chosen activities. Since with my crunchy knees I don't run unless a person with an axe is chasing me, I have to find other options. One of them is stair climbing. I have a long stone staircase near my house, and I just run up and down it, so that high intensity (up) is alternated with lower intensity (down). Simple, but a very effective use of 20 minutes. If you live in an apartment building and don't feel like going to the gym one day, just take on the stairs in your building.

So, how to develop your own fartlek program? The basis of fartlek is to alternate periods of high intensity work with periods of low intensity work. These periods can be of set duration, or you can just do them randomly. They can be as short as 10-20 seconds or as long as 5 minutes. To add intensity, you can increase speed or difficulty of the exercise. For example, you could run up and walk down a hill. You can alternate sprinting on a track, street, or field with slow jogging or walking. Or, you can simply adjust the difficulty level on your cardio machine. As you get better at it, figure out ways to add more resistance. Try a weighted knapsack as you run up hills, for example.

The article continues with some basic fartlek (interval) programs to follow (of course the BFL "20MAS" is another example). Basically it's all HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) that we're talking about. Of course, if you want to add more activity to your day - horseback riding, bike riding, walking the dog, 'indoor sports' :lol: whatever then go for it - just save those 10's for your HIIT sessions IMO!

Hey Karen nice to see you back...:wave:

Great article!

haha! Fartlek!

I was floored with laughter when I first moved here and saw the word "fart" all over the place (infart = entrance, utfart = exit, fartkontroll = speed control, police checking for speeders)

Amazing the things that exist in other languages that mean totally different things in your own hehe

Tidey