I change my daily workout program somewhat, about every four months, while still keeping within the basic Maggie's Fitness For Life format of roughly 1/3 weights, 1/3 calis, 1/3 cardio. Change is to keep my physical adaptation off balance and fresh, and also to address perceived weaknesses and imbalances in my program (with my genius trainer's advice, of course). It's a good idea to change routines sometimes. The only basic rule is to move without comfort for an hour or so daily.
Remember, I am not a spring chicken but I'll be damned if I ever want to feel, or act, old. I will not retire either because that sounds like a kind of preliminary death to me. When something strikes me down, as it will all of us, then OK because I will have gone the distance.
The main change now is to work on cardio endurance, running in particular.
My changes are below the fold. Remember, we're interested in hearing about your workout programs too, and your progress -
- The only thing I do not ever want to change is my 2 days of heavy weights, powerlifts and related weights with my genius trainer. I view these as foundational. If I had a lifting pal who liked 5 am workouts, I might give my trainer a break from me for a few months and save a few bucks. I am afraid of heavy weight without a spotter.
- I will increase from 1 to 2 calisthenics classes weekly. These are general conditioning classes with plenty of HIIT and light weights mostly. Agility, balance, and athleticism. Lots of movement, some isometrics. Fun, in a sick way, with a jolly atmosphere. No need to think much, just do what you're told, do your best, and survive it. Mrs. BD will do these with me, so that's cool. She is powerful with weights (to avoid osteoporosis) but wants to work on cardio and athleticism.
- I am going to change up my "cardio" program because I have discovered that I can no longer run an hour at a 6- 8 mph pace the way I could do easily in youth. Legs get tired, form breaks down, and my breathing gets unbalanced. Ideally, I'd like to run an hour at a 6 pace with an incline of 2. Why? Just because I view it as one aspect of general fitness. Sure, I can hill-hike all day but I won't view that as "fitness" until I grow old. So, I will dedicate two days/week on treadmill and nothing else on those days for a while to aim for running (not jogging) endurance. For my lousy level of endurance fitness, I call "jogging" 4 mph and "running" anything 6 mph or above. For me, 7 is almost a sprint, which is lame. Maybe mix some stair machine in there for variety and functionality because my real life demands no running but as much hill-hiking as we can find.
- I'll reduce my enjoyable two days of do-it-yourself auxiliary weights mixed with HIIT to once-weekly for a while. Pullups, Roman chair, pushups, jump rope, heavy ball throws, step-ups, curls, farmer walks, lunges, goblet squats, kettlebell swings, maybe rower sprints, etc. I do circuits of 3-4 items, 3-5 times per circuit, as fast as I can catch my breath. Whatever fits within 75 minutes (including elliptical 5 min warmup).
Re the pure cardio component, I have no interest anymore in running distance races as I used to. I've seen too much osteoarthritis in others. I just want to address this endurance component of general fitness.
Jogging means you can talk while doing it, running means you can breathe but not talk, and sprinting is anaerobic.
Readers know that we believe that "long, slow" is a time-waster (and boring as hell) except for beginners. It maintains, but does not build anything. So here's our initial plan to up my running endurance in a 50-min session (after 10-min elliptical warm-up and calf stretch):
It's a 1:2 program (ie, the time of 2-3 mph recovery walk is twice the time of the run). Alternate runs and jogs up and down between 4-7 mph until fatigue just begins to be felt in each run. Use the beginning of fatigue as the guide. Do not be heroic and keep on when form breaks down, and go into the recovery walk. The general rule is that any sort of training (weights, cardio, calis) reaches the 60-70% max effort except for, say, some 30 seconds of HIIT)
So I'll use the time of the beginning of significant felt fatigue as my index for the 1:2 format.
