Day 2: Cardio Increase

That was a tough one today...but good fun. I must admit I enjoy the cardio days more than the weights. As I am going for fat loss I tend to do more cardio.

Today's session was cranked up from last week. It takes roughly 50 minutes to complete but burns around 650 calories more than half of which are burnt in the first 21 minutes, read more to see why!!

It uses 4 cardio machines, my personal favourite as I am a runner at heart is the treadmill, followed by the stationary bike, then the hand bike and finally the elliptical cross trainer.

I must warn you that this routine especially the run is very High Intensity Training unless you are extremely fit. By all means try this out but please modify the intensities first according to your level, or even better still ask your gym instructor to modify it accordingly.

I am lucky in that all the below information is stored on a key which I can just plug into the machines and then off I go, so no messing around changing speeds, just concentrating on getting through it.

HIT Run (each interval is for 1 minute, each cycle is 4 minutes)

Cycle 1: 6 kph, 12 kph, 14 kph, 16 kph
Cycle 2: 6 kph, 13 kph, 15 kph, 17 kph
Cycle 3: 6 kph, 13 kph, 15 kph, 17 kph
Cycle 4: 6 kph, 13 kph, 15 kph, 17 kph
Cycle 5: 6 kph, 12 kph, 14 kph, 16 kph, 16 kph (one final extra minute)

Cycle (10 minutes)

5 minutes at effort level 6 keeping 100 - 105 rpms
5 minutes at effort level 10 keeping 90 - 100 rpms

Hand Bike (10 minutes)

10 minutes at effort level 7 maintaining a constant 70 rpms

Elliptical Cross Trainer (5 minutes)

I alternate this to work the calf muscles more, the 1st, 3rd and 5th minute are performed on your tip toes or ball of your foot.

5 minutes at effort level 12 maintaining 140 spm


That's it....

There is a 1 minute warm down for each exercise but the only other rest between equipment is enough time to swig a drink and wipe the machine down.

The run is designed to really push you to the edge of your limits and the remaining exercises will keep your pulse level high but just work different body parts.

As I said the 21 minutes on the treadmill burns around 340 calories and due to the intensity should continue to burn calories for some time after.

Until tomorrow....