Fat-Frying Gym Workout

Not-so-newsowrthy: IT'S SPRING!

And you have come to me for some toning workouts. Whether or not it's swimsuit, beach, and pool weather for you, it will be before you know it. Or at the very least, you're bound to find your beach at least once this season.

So this is a gym workout. I know I've said it before, "gyms = germs" but we're going to move past that for an hour or so (the workout shouldn't take more than that), and just sanitize yourself when you're done.

What you're going to need:

• An elliptical
• A medicine ball (between 4-10 lbs)
• A mat for ab exercises
• A treadmill

Let's get to it!

The Warm-up Segment:

10-12 minutes on the elliptical

• Really we could say this is an extended warm-up. Start as slow as you need, and gradually get your heart rate up during this intro to the workout (around 130-140 beats per minute). If your machine doesn't have a heart rate monitor, then just go by your rate of perceived exertion (RPE), which I look at on a scale of 1 to 10. Your warm-up should be around a 6 or 7. For a better idea of this "scale," you can think of this:
• 1 RPE = lounging around, pressing buttons on the remote
• 10 RPE = sprint like all hell has broken loose and you're being chased by a bear
• What I did for my warm-up was like a mini-interval workout, repeated twice:
• 3 minutes moderate pace
• 2 minutes hard
• 1 minute recover (easy), and switch direction of pedaling

The Body Toning Segment: 

• Medicine ball push-ups:
• Get into the push-up position and place a medicine ball under one hand and leave the other hand on the floor as usual.
• Do 3 push-ups with the ball under that hand.
• Roll the ball over to the other hand and do 3 more push-ups.
• Repeat this pattern until you have done 12 push-ups total (6 on each side).
• You will look something like this:

• Bicycle crunches:
• Lie on your back with your feet off the ground and knees bent at a 90 degree angle. Make sure there is a wide open space between your chin and your neck, and your eyes are focused on the ceiling. Gently place your hands behind your head, keeping your elbows pointed out to either side. 
• Simultaneously lift your right shoulder blade off the ground, turn and twist your upper body to the left, turn your right elbow to the left as your upper body twists, and straighten your right leg as you extend it to the ground without letting any part of your leg actually come in contact with the floor. 
• Return to the starting position and repeat on the other side. Do these at a relatively slow pace - it's easy to let your form get sloppy on bicycles. And under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you let your knees come in over your chest. The further your legs are from your body, the more this exercise will engage your core. 
• You should look something like this:

• Squats holding the medicine ball:
• Get into the basic squat position: toes pointing forward, feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, back straight, and eyes looking forward. 
• With a medicine ball (or dumbbell or weight plate) in your hands, hold it in front of you like this as you perform your squat:

• Women's Health calls this a braced squat because you are bracing yourself, contracting your abs, and maintaining good posture the entire time. 
• Do 10 reps. 

• Plank with pendulum taps:
• Start in basic plank position.

• Holding your core tight and your upper body steady, lift your right foot up and inch, then move your leg out laterally, tap your toe to the floor gently, then return to the starting position and repeat on the other side. 
• Repeat for the first 20 seconds of the exercise, moving at a moderate tempo.
• Hold the last 40 seconds of the plank without moving. 

• Lunge jumps holding the medicine ball:
• Holding a medicine ball straight overhead with both hands, get into a lunge position.
• Make sure there is plenty of distance between your feet and you have a stable base. You may want to take each foot an extra inch or so out to either side to make sure your base is stable.
• Quickly sink down into your lunge, do a powerful jump, switch the position of your legs, and land with your feet again in a stable position.
• Your exercise should resemble this, except you will have that medicine ball overhead in your hands the whole time:

You're definitely warm now, if you in fact did do that 3 times. I was sweating halfway through!

If you're a beginner, you may feel better doing those 5 workouts only twice through. If you're more advanced, try for 4 or 5 rounds. 

So moving on to...

The Sprinting Segment:

Repeat that 10 times.

That's right...10 sprints, 10 recovery periods. Personally I prefer to end on a sprint, but if you'd rather start with one and end on a recovery interval, then by all means - do what you gotta do to get it done!

I'm not a fan of workouts that tell you the exact mph you should be moving at during a treadmill workout. We're all at different levels, and while 6mph is torturous for some, it's just not going to cut it as a decent workout for others. 

• Your "easy" pace should be strong but sustainable. Maybe just a hair faster than what you would do for a warm-up. RPE should be around 6. 
• Your "hard" pace should be one that you would not be able to sustain for the whole workout. You should be gassed and needing to catch your breath by the end of each 1-minute interval. RPE should be 9 or 10. 

You may have to feel it out for the first few rounds of running before you find your stride. Don't be afraid to speed it up a bit faster than you think is right. You just may surprise yourself and get through it! And remember, it should be hard during the sprints...that's what the recovery segments are for. 

Have yourself a little cool-down (RPE = 2 or 3) when you're done (3-5 minutes jogging slow or walking on the treadmill), and take a few minutes to stretch, specifically focusing on your legs and glutes. 

Happy spring!

30-minute gym workout

I just hate that when I hear someone say that they "worked out for like 2 hours!" Bitch, please. You went to the gym, changed your clothes, walked on a treadmill for 10 minutes, lifted a couple of heavy things, took 20 water breaks, 30 minutes to stretch, and another 15 in the locker room after that. You did not exercise for 2 hours. If everyone who said they worked out for a solid 2 hours actually did it, I think we would have many more fit people in this country than we actually do.

Oh, and also, you don't have to work out for 2 hours a day to be in shape.

Hence, I give you the 30-minute gym workout. That doesn't include a major warm-up, cool-down, or any stretching, but you'll definitely be out of that gym in under 45 minutes. And it's an awesome workout because it involves my favorite...interval training! The whole time, it's all intervals!

Part 1: 15 minutes on the elliptical
First, scope out an elliptical with arms. That is, you will work your upper body at the same time as your lower body. Doing cardio with your upper body (exercises such as swimming, rowing, and ellipti-cising??) gets your heart rate up much more quickly than a lower-body focused workout (running, stair-climbing, biking, elliptical without arms) because for most people, the muscles in your upper body aren't conditioned for this kind of hard work. Even if you're quite conditioned, using upper body for cardio is still a lot of work and can really ramp up the intensity level (read, calorie burn) in your workout.

So here's how the elliptical interval workout goes, minute by minute. By the way, if you can program your elliptical switch between intensity levels during your workout, this will be much easier. The elliptical machines at my gym don't have this feature, so I just have to pay attention to the time and do everything manually.

0:00-2:59. Warm up, easy/moderate pace. Play around with the intensity/resistance level on the machine to see how much you can handle. My elliptical goes to 25, and my warm-up is usually between 8-12.

3:00-4:59. Time to get intense. Turn up the resistance so much that you can barely handle it. For me, this is at a 17. Go, go, go. 2 minutes of hard work!

5:00-5:59. Recovery. Easy pace. Can be the same as your warm-up. I set the machine between 8-10 normally for this. Also during this time, switch the direction which your pedaling.

6:00-7:59. Ramp up that resistance to what you were doing before. Try your best to go the entire 2 minutes without lowering the resistance. Also try and maintain your same speed (speed, on an elliptical, can be measured by the RPM's on the display). Go, go, go! Use your arms too!

8:00-8:59. Recovery. And switch the direction you're pedaling. You've probably noticed by now that it's easier for you to pedal in one direction than the other. Avoid doing the "easy" one for the remainder of the workout.

9:00-10:59. Up with the resistance! You're close to being done with this workout. Maintain the speed you've been doing, or try to go a little bit faster. If you must lower the resistance slightly during any of the high-intensity intervals only do so after you're sure you cannot go any further, and even then, maintain your speed. Don't reduce your resistance and your pace!

11:00-11:59. Recover. Switch direction of pedaling. You're almost done.

12:00-13:59. Final intense interval! Absolutely try to push yourself in these last 2 tough minutes. Arms, legs, breathe, speed...all of it!

14:00-15:00. Recover/cool down. I know, it's only one minute, not much of a cool down. But that's okay. The workout is halfway over, and your body will be warm for the remainder of it.

Don't take too long of a break. Grab some water, catch your breath, and head on over to an open space or open group exercise studio. If there's no class going on, you can usually go ahead into an empty studio and use it to work out on your own.

Part 2: 15 minutes in the Studio
Or slightly open area/floor space that your gym offers.
Equipment needed: Jump rope, 2 hand weights (5-10 lbs each),  6-12" step (like the kind they use in step classes), mat.
If you don't have these pieces of equipment, do not throw a fit and give up on me. I'll give equipment-free alternatives.

How it works: 
There are 5 exercises. Start each on a 1-minute interval cycle. You might finish the exercise before the minute is up, so that time is meant just for a little recovery. If you don't think you want to spend all those seconds recovering and catching your breath, you can start the next exercise earlier, hence, finishing this part of the workout in under 15 minutes. Repeat this 5-exercise cycle 3 times.

1. 1 minute. Jump rope.
2. 30 seconds. Crossover mountain climbers (like a regular mountain climber, but when your knees come up, cross them over towards the shoulder on the opposite side of your body. If this doesn't make sense to you, just do regular mountain climbers.)
3. Bicycle crunches, very slow pace, 16 reps (so 8 per side)
4. 45 seconds. Lateral (that's side-to-side) hops over the top of the step. Go fast, reach for the floor when you land on either side. 
5. Plank rows. You're in push-up position with a weight under each hand. Row your arms, one at a time, leading with your elbow. Slowly lower the weight back down and alternate sides. Do 12 reps (6 per side).

Alternative, no-equipment option:

1. 1 minute. Jumping jacks.
2. 30 seconds. Crossover mountain climbers. Thought you were getting out of that one, did you??
3. 50 second plank. It would be nice to have a mat for this. At the very least, maybe a little towel under your forearms.
4. 45 seconds speed skater jumps. There are some variations of this exercise. Do the one that feels very difficult for you to complete in 45 seconds.
5. 15 push-ups. 

For a cool down, you can walk/light jog on the treadmill for 5 minutes or pedal lightly on a stationary bike for this amount of time. If you live super close to your gym, like I do, you can just jog to and from the place and your warm-up and cool-down are taken care of. On that note, if you do warm-up before you even get to the gym or if you do so on a piece of equipment other than the elliptical, then you can just jump right into the elliptical intervals instead of spending the first 3 minutes warming up on there.

I'd recommend stretching when your're done as well. This workout is very core-focused but works shoulders, quads, hamstrings, glutes, abs, back, and triceps, so focus on those for stretching. And gulp some ounces of water too.