Friday Fitness: No Equipment, No Excuses Cardio Workout Routine

So let’s be honest, sometimes it is hard to get to the gym. Whether it is freezing temperatures and ice on the road, or a weekend away where exercise equipment is at a premium, there are times when it seems nearly impossible to get to the gym. So should we tell ourselves, “oh well, I tried” or “oh yes, time to get creative!”

Well, I am going to get creative for you and give you 10 bodyweight cardio exercises that can be done anywhere—at home or even on vacation! So no excuses for not getting that heart rate up!

Heart Pumping Exercises:

• Skip: Flash back to the playground for this fun activity. Starting on the right foot, jump off the ground, drawing the left knee into the chest. Land softly on the right foot and then explode up on the left foot, drawing the right knee into the chest.


• High Knees: This one can be done at high or low intensity. Alternate bringing one knee into the chest, then place it on the ground; alternate with the other leg. Pick up the pace for some quick cardio.


• Jumping Jack: An obvious but good cardio exercise. Start in a standing position, hands by your sides and legs together. Jump your legs out, wider than shoulder width apart and bring your arms straight up over your head; return to starting position. To modify, maintain the arm movement up over head but step side to side instead of jumping.


• Burpee: The pushup is optional in this exercise, but included for some extra strength if you chose to challenge yourself even more. Start in an upright, standing position, bend down and place hands on the ground by your feet. Kick your feet back or step back to a plank position. Hold (insert push-up here if comfortable) and then jump or walk feet back to hands and jump up. Repeat.


• Mountain climber: Start in a plank position on the ground, bring one knee in toward the chest then replace and alternate with the other leg. Pick up the pace to really move over those mountains.


• Squat jump: Begin by lowering down into a squat and then jump up putting air between your feet and the ground. To engage the arms, drop them toward the ground as you are lowering into the squat and push straight up into the air as you are jumping.


• Long jump: You don’t have to be facing a pit of sand to enjoy the benefits of the long jump. Start by lowering into a slight squat position, pump the arms and jump forward landing with soft knees and both feet at the same time.


• Jump rope: These are small jumps up and down, landing with soft knees (slight bend). If you don’t have a jump rope then simply move the hands like you were holding the handles. A jump rope is a great piece of fitness equipment because it doesn’t take up too much space in your suitcase when traveling!


• Bicycle: Lie on your back with your feet at a 90 degree angle in the air: knees right under the hip, and feet in line with the knees. Keep the hands by the hips and alternate extending each leg and drawing in. It’s just like riding a bike!


• Flutter kicks: Not just for the pool. Lie on your stomach with hands folded in front of you, relax either your head or chin onto your hands. Squeezing the glutes and lifting the legs off the ground, flutter the legs continuously. Try lifting the thighs up off the ground too. Kick, kick, kick, kick!

Friday Fitness: Swimming for Weight Loss

If you’ve visited H3 recently, you probably noticed I have been embracing regular swim personal trainings for the past several months. Encouraging individuals to get acquainted with the water is not only beneficial for them, but gratifying for me! Helping to improve stroke techniques, as well as encouraging the idea of incorporating swimming into their daily exercise regiments simply opens the door to many more possibilities for all parties involved. Regular swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness. It can be used as a great form of cross training, as swimming requires full muscular engagement. When you swim, you are utilizing both upper and lower body muscles to propel you through the water. These muscles are being used in ways you do not typically utilize them.

There are also psychological benefits to swimming as well as “swimoga” anyone? If you are going to embrace swimming, why not be mindful when doing so? Try to eliminate the distractions or daily mental chatter. Begin simply by focusing on the rhythm of your stroke and/or the rhythm of your breath. Listen to the water— it will in time quiet your mind, adding a meditative component to your workout too!

Therefore, for Friday Fitness this week I encourage you to grab your goggles and get in the pool, lake, ocean, etc. Below you will find a 1200m workout—assuming you are swimming in a 25m or 50m pool—utilizing the freestyle stroke (aka. front crawl) for its entirety.

The main set/drills will involve a kickboard and a pull buoy. If you do not have a pull buoy you can use a swim weight in between your legs, which will help to restrict you from kicking and force you to use your arms to pull yourself through the water. If you do not know how to use these tools and or do not have access to either of them, simply swim freestyle stroke for the drill section as well.

1200m

Warm-up
2 x50, 1x 100

Main Set

Drill
2x 50 pull
2x 50 kick

Ladder
50, 100, 150, 150, 100, 50

Cool-down
1x100, 2x50

Friday Fitness: Bring The Party To The Pool!

Two weeks ago we welcomed a new intern, Betsy Hood, to Hilton Head Health.  Betsy just completed her senior year at Illinois State University with a degree in Exercise Science.  Betsy brings a wealth of knowledge, youth and excitement to our H3 team.  In addition, she has been a certified Aqua Zumba instructor for the past 4 years.  If you thought Zumba on land was fun, just wait until you come back to H3 and take a class with Betsy in the pool.  Here’s a 60 second sample of the H3 bustin’ a move in the pool.



Known as the Zumba® “pool party,” the Aqua Zumba program gives new meaning to the idea of an invigorating workout. Splashing, stretching, twisting, even shouting, laughing, hooting and hollering are often heard during an Aqua Zumba class. Integrating the Zumba formula and philosophy with traditional aqua fitness disciplines, the Aqua Zumba class blends it all together into a safe, challenging, water-based workout that’s cardio-conditioning, body-toning, and most of all, exhilarating beyond belief.

Woohoo! One Month Down!

Since January 1^st, I have been determined to make this year different. So far, I have to say that I am pretty proud of myself for sticking with my commitment to fit more physical activity into my weekly schedule. Working out is now a priority and, when I can, I try to schedule the rest of week around my workout routine. If you’re like me, you get bored running on the treadmill or lifting weights in the gym. I’m a group fitness gal and truly find it a pleasure to workout with others. Not only do I push myself further, but the time seems to just fly by when I’m having fun working out with friends.

This year I decided to try something new and somehow convinced a few of my friends from H3 to join me. Many of you have taken this class during your visit to H3 but believe it or not, very few of us staff members have actually attempted this high-energy, music-thumping aerobic class. I’m talking about Zumba, the dance fitness class that has mothers, daughters and even grandmothers strutting their stuff on the dance floor. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of men Zumba too (only the boldest and bravest J)!

According to the official Zumba Fitness^® website, Zumba is the only Latin-inspired dance-fitness program that blends red-hot international music, created by Grammy Award-winning producers, and contagious steps to form a "fitness-party" that is downright addictive. Since its inception in 2001, the Zumba program has grown to become the world's largest – and most successful – dance-fitness program with more than 12 million people of all shapes, sizes and ages taking weekly Zumba classes in over 110,000 locations across more than 125 countries.

So, five H3 staff members and I decided to step outside our comfort zones to see what all the buzz was about. After attending the first class, I knew I was hooked. Whether I look good doing it or not, I love to dance and the thing I love about Zumba most is that everyone is encouraged to put their own flava into the moves. It’s fairly easy to pick up and everyone is cheering one another on. You can make it as intense as you’d like, averaging several hundred calories burned per session, but above all, you’re there to have fun. The variety of ages in the classes also surprised me. The women who attend our local Zumba studio are there every night giving it their all and I find their excitement contagious and exhilarating.

The moral of this story is, we’ve made it one month into the year and we’re still going strong with our goals! If you think you’ve fallen off the wagon a little, pick yourself back up starting today! It’s never too late to re-dedicate your life to health. If you’re getting bored with your routine, try something new. Maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t but you’ll never know until you try. I’ll share the two mantras that have really stuck with me this year and hopefully, they’ll help you as well.

“Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today,” and “Just for today I will…”

So get out there and as my Zumba instructor would say, “Shake it!”

(I found the image below on the Hilton Head Health Pinterest page. It pretty much sums up how I feel during Zumba, which is pretty awesome in case you couldn't tell. :-) )

Friday Fitness: HOW TO DO LESS AND GET MORE! NO GIMMICKS.

A new frontier in the fitness field is emerging and it’s dispelling years of conventional thought.  For decades we have been trained to pound the pavement for a long duration at a manageable intensity.  As we’ve been taking our sweet time leisurely pedaling or ambling along, a growing collection of individuals are practicing a more effective method. 

High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is an exercise strategy that improves performance with short training sessions that typically last between 10-20 minutes.  HIIT is a repeated combination of short near maximal intensity bouts of activity followed by periods of recovery.  In addition to being time effective, HIIT has been shown to significantly increase cardiovascular efficiency as much, and in some cases more, than moderate aerobic training, decrease body fat percentage and increase resting metabolic rate, and improve insulin action.  Below are three methods; the 1:2 ratio, 1:3 ratio and the Tabata Method.

Keep in mind that HIIT is only effective if you warm-up and cool down—take the prescribed rest—and is not appropriate for individuals that have preexisting cardiovascular issues.  I’d recommend starting with one or two HITT sessions per week and increasing to three or four once you feel your body is ready.  Finally, HIIT training can be used during any modality of exercise whether that’s cycling, running, elliptical, swimming or rowing. 

1:2 Ratio

A 1:2 exercise session consists of 30 seconds of high-intensity aerobic exercise at about 70-80% of your maximum effort. This 30-second session of intense exercise is followed by 60 seconds of low-intensity exercise at about 30% of your maximum (30 seconds followed by 60 seconds is a 1:2 ratio). 

This is a total of 90 seconds and completes one interval.  Repeat this cycle for 6-8 intervals depending on your fitness level.



1:3 Ratio

 For a 1:3 ratio workout start at 90% of your maximum for 30 seconds followed by 90 seconds at 30% effort. Notice that the "rest" period is 3 times as long as the exercise period but the intensity level is higher than in the 1:2 routine. 

Thirty-seconds of high-intensity exercise followed by 90 seconds of "rest" is a two-minute interval.  Repeat 4-5 times, then cool-down.  Exercise time for this workout: 8-10 minutes!



Tabata Method

Dr. Izumi Tabata is a Japanese exercise physiologist at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan where he has been researching HIIT training in competitive athletes.  When he and his colleagues experimented with the interval ratios they made a startling discovery. 

By changing the ratio from 1:2 to 2:1, he found that the greatest benefits came from exercising at very high-intensity (at or near 100% effort) for very short durations.  A Tabata workout would consist of 20 seconds of all-out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest (a 2:1 interval ratio).  This creates a 30 second interval that is repeated 8 times for a total of 4 minutes!  With warm-up and cool-down, this is a 14 minute workout!

The amazing thing is how well this workout routine seems to work.  The competitive athletes that Tabata tested showed a 28% increase in their aerobic fitness while a control group that did more traditional cardio training showed little increase over the testing period.