Life Change in Two Steps
Two Daily Sprout messages this week, and within these two will be powerful life change if you choose to put them into practice. One is a physical change, that will come from a commitment to short burst exercise. The other is a much deeper change that comes from being a NON-CONFORMIST.
Yeah, sounds Rebel Like doesn’t it? Well, you’ll see what I mean on Wednesday. Oh, and don’t forget, we will have Author and Speaker, Dr. Josh Axe in on Wednesday at 11:00am. $10 pre registration and $20 at the door… and we are giving you a bunch of tastings of the Beyond Organic foods. If you miss this, you can come to CrossFit Silos, at 12635 Crabapple Road, Alpharetta GA 30004 – right next door to Sip Wine Bar.
So today, is all about exercise. Exercise that you can do in your home, at work, on the side of the road if needed. There is no reason to not do this, except you simply don’t care enough. So for most of you, welcome to the rest of your life.
The word of the day is, TABATA. Many of you have heard of it, some have done it because of my Workout Of The Week programming, others have done it in a CrossFit gym, or even some other location. The key is the duration of work to rest. This is what makes Tabata special. You see, it is a time oriented workout, with 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest, for 4 minutes.
Variations increase the total work from 4 to 8, to 12 to 16 minutes, adding more intervals, but NEVER altering the work/rest ratio. And having done many variations on the work/rest ratio, I would advise that you stick with this one, unless you have some excellent knowledge on Exercise Physiology that makes you want to experiment.
So, 20 seconds of work is not a lot, but then, neither is 10 seconds of rest. Usually by the time you get half way through Tabata, you cannot believe you are only half way through. 2 minutes seems like an eternity ago, and an eternity away. So what do you do in this 4 minutes of hell? Well, almost anything.
I recommend you stick with pretty basic movements, as it will help you to stay focused on moving, and not resting. *** DISCLAIMER – if you do this, you will be really, really sore the first time, so if you don’t like being really sore, then hold yourself back some****
So let’s try squats, push-ups, sit-ups, standing jumps, broad jumps, burpees, jumping lunges (jumping into a lunge position then out and back into the alternating leg lunge position), and if you have them with confidence: pull-ups, jumping rope, or double under jump ropes. After a few weeks of experimenting, I would have you pursue running as well, but its good to get a feel for this first, as running never allows a full rest in 10 seconds (it takes about 5 seconds to come down from a hard run to walking, thus you never stop moving).
So now you have the work/rest ratio, and you have the movements, so lets put it all together. We’ll use squats. You might want to get a Tabata Timer for your phone if you have a smart phone or for your tablet. They come in every app store, and simply require a search for tabata. If you don’t use a tabata timer, then use a clock online, or a stop watch (better if you can see it easily). http://www.online-stopwatch.com/ provides a decent sized countdown timer.
Your goal – is going to be to do as many reps as possible in each round. You must keep track of every round every time you do this. And you should keep the record for review (this will help your psyche later). So if you are doing squats, at the moment you start the clock, you start squatting. Full depth (as full as you can go), followed by full upright. At 20 seconds, stop and rest until 30 seconds, then go again. Stop at 50 seconds, then start at 1 minute. Time is crucial to get a good comparison from lap to lap, as well as against future attempts.
Your score is determined by the round with the least number of the exercise. To give you a sense of how intense/urgent you should be. I can do 23 squats in 20 seconds, and keep that pace going for awhile.
Other than that, just stay in it. 3 times a week is perfect, and you don’t want to skip because of soreness… that will simply get better in time!
Be Well, Be Blessed, and Be FIT! – Dr. E