Challenge Your Heart Rate

A great way to make your work outs go faster and be more efficient is to challenge yourself and your heart rate. This is simple to do with a heart rate monitor or without a monitor.

The idea is to take your work out up a notch for a few minutes at a time during the session. The plan for any type of exercise it to keep a steady pace for 3 minutes then pick up your heart rate by picking up your pace or intensity for the next 2 minutes then bring your heart rate down back to your steady pace. Every 5 minutes you will be changing the routine for a 3 minute interval then a 2 minute interval. The intensity routine work out can be adjusted depending on your fitness level. 4 minutes to 1 minute of intensity, 2 minutes to 3 minutes of intensity or if you wish, 4 minutes of high intensity and 1 minute steady pace. The important thing is to choose a plan to fit your needs that day.

For example if you are outside walking there are several ways to pick it up. I used walking as a way to teach myself to jog. This picked up my heart rate and made my workout more efficient, challenging and fun because the time went so fast. I would allow myself to walk up the hills and jog lightly down the hills and on the flats.

Ok, so you are not into jogging, don't - you can just walk faster, use a straighter stature, swing your arms bigger, lift your legs into a knee up while your walk.

The idea is to pick up your heart rate. Using a heart rate monitor follow the guidelines on the page on this blog titled "Heart Rate Training Zones". Find the age range appropriate and pick out the range of your heart rate. For example if you are 40 years old a good interval work out would entail keeping your heart rate between 117 -126 for your steady pace then 144 - 153 for the higher intensity level. If you do not have a heart rate monitor check the page titled "Rate of Perceived Exertion" that can help you figure out if your heart rate is up. A good work out using the guidelines mentioned in the article would be to keep your rate of perceived exertion between 6 and 7 for the steady pace and between 7 and 9 for the higher level.

Try this type of work out, have fun, get and energising work out and watch the time fly by. Let me know how it works for you and enjoy.