Being I'm getting old and have an office job I need to keep active. Our family has a YMCA membership which includes all the fitness equipment you could imagine. I'm not looking to change my body or lose a ton of weight and this is not a hardcore fitness program. I basically want to keep my heart healthy and keep myself in good shape and active. I've been doing 40 min 3 times a week on the elliptical running my heart rate at 145-150 BPM. I'm 38 6'-0" and my weight is ~200 lbs. It says I'm going 4 miles and are burning 600 calories. Is this about the right duration to be working out and is 3 times a week enough for my health? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
3 times a week is fine, but I'd suggest doing something else than just the elliptical. Those calorie counters are horribly inaccurate. You are not burning 600 calories. I'd suggest lift weights twice a week and do cardio once a week. To keep it easy for the weights, just do "push" weights one day and "pull" weights the other day.
Forgive anything I say in this thread as I have no idea what I am talking about. My concern with weights was I am not working my heart as much with the cardio. What would be the reason to do the weights instead of perhaps other cardio work?
The only thing you need for cardio is to get your heart rate elevated. You can do a fast weight routine with lower weight and higher reps to keep your heart rate elevated. Weight training is just more efficient for burning calories. As for the duration of cardio, that all depends on the intensity of the workout. You could do a really intense 10 min cardio workout and get more out of it than a 40 min low intensity workout.
Use light weights and do a circuit three times a week. No rest between sets if possible to keep the heart rate up. You are not looking to bulk up, just get tone and fit and improve cardiovascular fitness. When doing cardio, use HIIT. Google it and you will find tons of plans. Basically, you will get a lot more benefit from interval cardio for half the time spent. I have been doing HIIT on an indoor bike trainer since the beginning of the year and have been amazed at the quick fitness results. I have just been doing about three minutes of warm up at a comfortable pace and then 30 seconds of 90 to 100% effort followed by 90 seconds of about a 60% effort to recover and then do it all over again. I have been getting in 4 miles on the bike in less than 16 minutes and seeing far better results than I ever did doing a half hour or more of steady pace workouts. I am now to the point that I will increase the length of the high intensity portion and shorten the recovery portion. My son does some HIIT where he steadily increases the time of the high intensity portion each cycle until you basically cant go. At any rate, give it a try.
So isn't it better for your heart if you heart rate is elevated for a longer duration? I did not know that weights were more efficent in burning calories. Interesting. How long of a duration do you think I need to do fast weight work to get max results? You can do a hell of a lot of weights in 30 min. Seems like a long time to be doing that.
I do most of my conditioning on an elipitical. I prefer to try to go further in the time I set rather than being on the machine longer. If you push yourself for 30 minutes add on a warm up and warm down 40 minutes is plenty. I don't lift weights, cutting and splitting firewood, lugging hay bales, and pushing wheelbarrows thru the snow and other misc activities are my weight training.
My weight lifting circuits are now only taking me about 20 minutes or less. It has been the quickest that I have ever seen results.
Definitely works. But some of the workouts just take too long. Over an hour is hard for my schedule. Without the proper nutrition, nothing works. P90X has a nice plan for the nutrition piece.
So I was just reading about HIIT. When it talks about 20 seconds of "work" are they talking like sprinting for 20 seconds and then resting for 40 seconds? [h=2]THE WORKOUT[/h]This workout will take 10 minutes. Start with a light jog for three minutes and then complete 10 minutes worth of one of the levels below. Walk for three minutes upon completion to cool down. Beginner: 20 seconds of work 40 seconds recovery x 10 * Intermediate: 30 seconds of work 30 seconds of recovery x 10 * Advanced: 40 seconds of work 20 seconds of recovery x 10 *
Over an hour is too long as well. I like these shorter duration workouts because 40 min was already tough to swing.
So basically forget the elliptical and do the treadmill with the HITT system once a week and then lift fast the other two times per week. Give me how long I should expect to do the lifting for duration wise? 20 min?
You want a quick, simple workout to do at home that should only take 15 minutes? Do 100 burpees as fast as you can.
The best treadmill workout is interval sprints on full incline. 0.1 - walk at 3.0 0.1 - 0.2 - sprint at 6.5 0.2 - 0.3 - walk at 3.0 and so on try to do at least a mile at first
I did if you didn't happen to see it. Warm up. Then 30 seconds of all out effort followed by 90 seconds of 60% effort and repeat for about 15 to 20 minutes. I could only do about 10 minutes when I first started 6 weeks ago.
