Let’s play a little game of Would You Rather?
Would you rather… run 7 miles outside or do the elliptical for 20 minutes?
For me, 7 miles. Hands down. Every Day. No more questions. What would you choose?
I know, a short-lived game. It was fun though, right?!
My point here is that strongly dislike the elliptical. The treadmill too. Oh, and the stationary bike. Basically, any form of cardio that is done indoors on a machine for longer than 8 minutes.
8 minutes on one of these things = eternity. I don’t have the mental strength for eternal workouts.
But you know, sometimes you just do whatcha gotta do. Maybe it’s -20 degrees outside (Please, God. Not again.). Maybe there is a lightning storm. Maybe you have a bum hip/knee and need to take a break from running (like me right now. Sad face). Whatever the reason, sometimes you just need to roll with the punches and jump on a machine.
I have found that doing interval workouts on the elliptical/treadmill/bike fly by much quicker than doing a steady pace the entire time. Plus higher intensity = shorter workouts. Shorter workouts = happy Jenna.
So when life hands you lemons… go work on your speed. Here’s what we’ll do:
Start off with a nice 5-minute warm up. Get your blood pumping and try to get a little bit faster every minute. Minutes 5-10 will alternate between 30 seconds of sprinting at a high resistance level and 30 second of jogging at lower resistance. Then jump off gently step down, because Minute 10 will be a plyometric exercise and Minute 11 will be a strength exercise. The pattern in Minutes 5-12 will repeat two more times with varying resistances, plyometrics, and strength exercises. Afterwards treat yourself to a full 4-minute cool down while thinking about how surprisingly enjoyable the workout was.
When you get off of the elliptical to do the jumps and push ups use a clock or watch to time the minute. If you don’t have easy access to a time keeping device you can do the quantities listed below instead.
Chances are that the machine will have reset due to inactivity. This is ok. Get the machine going and proceed with the 5 minutes of intervals.
I did this workout on Friday and burned just over 300 calories according to my heart rate monitor. Not bad for a 30 minute workout! Make sure to do some stretching afterwards.
And hey, maybe in this little game of Would You Rather you chose the elliptical over running. If that’s the case then you are awesome and I hope you enjoy this workout.
It’s Sunday. Get on it and go burn off all that Halloween candy!