Friday, March 29, 2013

There's No Excuse....

....for not exercising.  Well, there are very few legit excuses anyway.  Today was a perfect example of why anyone can do a workout, without a gym membership, and with little to no equipment needed.  And yes, in 30 minutes or less, you can get your heart rate up, and tone the whole body pretty darn well.

This morning, my wife and I were trying to figure out what we wanted to do for exercise.  We have a gym membership at a place 5 minutes away which offers everything we could want/need.  But today I talked her into doing my "30 Minute At Home Exercise Plan".  For her, there was no equipment needed.  For me, I used a jump rope and a 30 pound kettle bell.  Oh and we used a free app called Gym Boss Interval Timer.

Our warm up included her doing jumping jax, and me doing jump rope.  I have a timed program on my Gym Boss App that has us do 10 seconds of activity, followed by 10 seconds of rest.  Then 20 seconds of activity, 20 seconds rest, 30 seconds of activity, 30 of rest, then 20 and 20, then 10 and 10.  We then start over and go through the cycle again 2 more times.  It takes about 9 minutes total and warms up the whole body, gets the heart rate going a bit, and gets you ready for more intense exercise.

The next thing we did was a combination of two exercises back to back, with downward pyramiding reps.  She did lunges and crunches I did kettle bell swings and mountain climbers.  I started with 10 of each, then 9, then 8, then 7 (well you get the drift) with no rest in between exercises or sets.  She did her's starting with 8 reps and working her way down.  So it looked like this for her:  8 lunges on each leg, immediately dropping down and doing 8 crunches, then back up to do 7 lunges, then 7 crunches etc til we both got to 1.  This program, particularly if you do large muscle groups, gets your heart rate really going!

We then did what I call my finisher.  Again we used the Gym Boss App.  It was set to do 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest.  We had two exercises to use. One was what I call a skater's jump.  You start on one leg and jump to the side, landing on the other leg, and not letting the original leg touch.  Then you jump back the other way, back and forth. It looks almost like an ice skater on a long stretch where their body moves back and forth, except they're gliding and we're jumping.  I pretend I am jumping over something so I get some height, and distance to the side.  After 20 seconds of that, there's 10 seconds of rest.  Then we assume the plank position on our forearms, and when the timer beeps, we go up to a pushup position, then back down to the plank position, back and forth til the timer beeps again (20 seconds). Then there's rest and we go back to the skaters jumps.  This program is 4 minutes long, and includes 4 sets of the two exercises.

That was it.  We were done.  I had gotten my heart rate up, I had worked the entire body for the most part, and it didn't require getting ready to drive to a gym and then coming back home.  You can modify your reps, timing, exercises etc to make it work for you.  Anyone can do this (with rare exceptions, please consult your physician if you're not a regular exerciser and want to get started).  It's a great way to get some variety of exercises, in a short, compact time, that is very efficient!

Until next time...Be Well!!

Dr. Bruce