Wednesday’s Workout| HIIT the Beach| High Intensity Interval Training

 

How are your workout’s going girls? Are you still doing the 30 Day Abs Challenge? I am on day 4, a little behind, but still going strong! I’m getting the hang of mountain climbers and looking forward to trying next weeks moves. I find that each day gets easier so hope to see some inches lost soon!

Anyways on to this weeks workout. This week I am sharing with you one of my favourite workout videos from the Tone It Up girls. If you haven’t heard of Tone It Up before you need to go and check it out! It is a site run by two gorgeous girls that is a fun and motivating fitness community. They post regular workouts, recipes and challenges to get involved in, along with the added motivation of giveaways! Yesterday marked the start of their 3rd Annual Bikini Series, which is a 8 week challenge to get bikini ready. I’m all signed up for it and am currently looking through my Free Bikini Starter Pack.

The workout below is not from the Bikini Series but is still a great one! It demonstrates a number of moves for you to carry out for atleast 30 seconds to gain a High Intensity Interval workout. I wanted to share this workout as it is also very similar to the workouts I have be doing at my bootcamp class, so can tell you that they work you very hard! At bootcamp we work in pairs, one does one of the moves while the other runs a certain distance marked out by our trainer and runs back to the partner, which then releases them from the exercise move. You then swap! So the time you spend completing the interval move depends on how quick your partner runs… it makes it a bit more fun and interactive! If you don’t fancy getting out in the park and doing this, just complete each of the moves for 30-60 seconds and repeat as many times as you can! Aim for atleast 2 circuits!

High Intensity Interval Training is one of the best ways to burn fat quickly! So what are you waiting for, get going! Let me know what you think of the workout and if you give it a try! Also if you have any request for workouts that target specific areas I will do my best to find my favourite and share them with you!

 

Don’t forget to check out my blogger of the week Vicki and her amazing lifestyle blog A Life Of Geekery, full of food, crafts, beauty and life. Her photos are truly gorgeous and I love her recipes!

Motivation Monday| Work out Smarter Part 1| Interval Training

 

How is everyone's health and fitness resolutions going? Still going to the gym? Still eating healthily? I know I've slipped up a couple of times, but the trick is to not let it get you down! Success comes from getting straight back up when you fall down! Do not let one bad day become a bad week, then that bad week become a month…. get back to it!

From what I have gathered through talking to friends and through you lovely blogging ladies, changing your diet is the easiest task when it comes to changing your attitude to health. I have been in awe of many of your gorgeous healthy dinners on Instagram and Twitter. It seems to be the exercise that people struggle with, and as I personally love to workout I thought I would share some tips with you on how I have found the motivation to go from Couch Potato to Mad Runner!

To be fit, healthy and toned you need to balance a healthy diet with regular exercise. Now for many of you especially my fellow bloggers finding the time to workout if difficult... What with full time jobs, blogs to manage and write, friends and family to see and time to sleep... Where you you squeeze in a workout?

The trick is to workout smartly! You can do a half an hour workout 5 times a week and still see results quickly, you just need to make the most of the little time you have! This is where Interval Training comes in! Yes it is harder than traditional hour long cardio workouts but if you want to spend less time to get the results you need then this may be your answer!

What is Interval Training and How does it work?

Interval Training involves short intervals of maximum intensity exercise separated by longer intervals of low to moderate intensity exercise. It burns more calories than traditional cardio exercise because it involves you working to your maximum effort. Overall an Interval Training session consists of a warm up followed by 6 to 10 repetitions if high intensity exercise, separated by medium to low intensity exercise, ending with a cool down and stretching.

The benefits to Interval Training

• It burns more calories, both during and after your workout as it takes your body longer to recover.
• It increases your metabolism so you improve your overall fat-burning potential.
• Improves your overall fitness and athletic capacity and condition
• It works both your anaerobic and aerobic energy systems.
• It limits muscle lost that occurs during weight loss compare to traditional steady-state cardio exercise

The biggest advantage to Interval Training is that you can adapt it to your fitness level! You can alter the number of repetitions you do in a routine, you can change the length of your recovery periods etc. You can also do it in a variety of different ways; running, cycling, rowing or on the cross trainer.

Prior to the last two weeks I had not done much Interval training but since I have been doing it I have noticed a big increase in my fitness levels and running performance. More importantly I have been enjoying my workouts more! I hate the treadmill but as it is dark when I finish work I can’t get out on the fells to run so I don’t have much choice. I used to run at the same pace for about 45 minutes and be bored out of my mind, but since I have started Interval Training the time goes a lot quicker even though I am pushing myself harder than ever before!

I have been using the Tone It Up interval routines this past few weeks, you can see them above. But have also includes some others for you to try.

Have you ever tried Interval Training before? Do you enjoy it, and did you see any results? Let me know if you give this ago!