Hi On Your Mark Fitness Tips readers,
So what are your goals for Fitness this Spring? Buy some new tracksuits for men or women to bring you ultimate comfort on your new fitness journey? Climb Grouse Grind,? Start playing soccer again? Visit a ninja gym franchise? Start playing tennis or just average peak performance from chair to car?
Do you wonder how high your heart rate should go and for how long to achieve your personal fitness goals? You must…
Lets break down some fitness goals and see if we can get off to the right start when we Train a comeback Fitness Challenger…
Start with Short Term Goals
Our Fitness Challenger is a 50 years old and hasn’t exercised since he was 35 and the doctor told him to lose 12lbs.
Okay so he used to play hockey for the Toronto Maple Leafs and really hasn’t done exercise for the past 15 years. Exercise is crucial to keep not only your body healthy but your mind too, you will need to participate in exercise to live your best life which also includes having fun and taking part in activities with friends. Ekata is an excellent fitness gym and martial arts school in Santa Clarita, if you live in this country or if you are planning to visit this country then you should check this club out, and invite your friends and family too – keep exploring your fitness levels!
He’s in perfect physical condition to try out for the Toronto Maple Leafs Spring Golf team. So here is our plan to make the team…..
Start exercising 3-5x per week slowly and smart with as many low impact and low weight bearing exercises as you can, before you run 5 miles or bike 20 miles.
Our 10 week program has our client at 60 – 70% Maximal Heart rate for the first 6 weeks while doing these series of exercises.
– Enter an aqua fit class or try swimming some laps. Tread water for up to 15 mins.
– Yoga or Pilates introduction classes.
– Ride a bike for 20 mins 3x per week.
– Walk the dog instead of driving to a country road and let him run behind the car. 20 min walks.
– Get a gym pass for strength training and incorporate the gym into at least 2 workouts a week.
Ever try getting a rubber ring off the bottom of the pool 5 x in a row? Depending on the pool depth this can be a nice cross training type of exercise to use with athletes for change from the usual routine.
Watching saucer eyed athletes plead for mercie while they spit water out faster than a whale from its blow hole is quite refreshing for a Trainer at times.
Does raise their Heart Rates a bit, which is the purpose of the exercise.
Treading water for 5 – 15 min can do wonders for an athletes flexibility.
Passing a light weight back and forth for 10 mins and trying to tread water at the same time.
Our 50 year old Golf Pro floundered but eventually kept his head above water.
Moderate intensity swimming is a good form of low impact exercise that will bring up and keep your heart rate raised to approx 60 – 70% of your Maximal Heart Rate. If you feel out of breath do less at an easier pace.
The Gym workouts for losing fat need not be Sprints on a bike or jumping up and down.
Depending on your lifestyle, 1 – 60 min workout 3x per week or a few shorter workouts a day including strength training at 60 – 70% of your Maximum Heart Rate leaves the bodies metabolism turned on throughout the day with a greater chance of fat lose.
An example of how our 50 year old Fitness Challenger got in shape slowly by raising his Heart Rate 3x a day was:
Riding a bike for 20 mins in the morning and then a pool and 45 min gym workout at 5pm with a 20 min brisk walk at 9pm with his dog.
This program was 4x per week for 6 weeks and then also some of the gym and pool workouts increased to 1.5 hrs as time went on.
Interval Training
Okay so its 6 weeks of low impact exercise 3-5x a week, a couple times a day.
You have lost 8 lbs and are feeling like a Spring chicken again, wanting to run in the “Organic Garden ” like you used to.
That fast paced hockey he wants to play can easily have his heart rate in the 150-170 beats per minute range, so we bring the conditioning up slowly.
Sounds like the words cardio and strength training are in the golf pro’s vocabulary for the first time in 15 years…
Time to enter a beginners biking spinning class or fill the tires up on the old bike and do the 2 mile burns bog short circuit at a pace you can go harder at for a short while and then slow down to talk every now and then.
Yeah that’s it you are now doing interval training, bringing your heart rate up a little higher for a short period of time and down again as your heart gets used to the added stress.
Your Heart Rate should be approaching 70% – 80% Max Heart Rate during your intervals if you plan to play hockey or soccer again or do the Grouse Grind uphill climb in a few weeks. Most treadmills have interval training programs on them.
Use your heart rate monitor to look back and see how high your Heart Rate went during your workout so you can tailor your Heart Rate Monitor to warn you if your are working too hard or too long at a higher rate.
No need working at a high intensity if you want to lose fat.
After 6 weeks of cross training at lower Heart Rate intensities we suggested our Leafs’ Golf Pro train like this to achieve 70 to 80 % Heart rate Max while training 4-5x per week.
– Short sprints 3 – 5x a week on a stationary bike: 30 mins minimum.
– Short hill runs with varying rest periods with higher and lower exercise intensities: Push ups at bottom of hill.
– Joined a spin class to monitor Heart rate visually while he rode.
– Cardio bursts of 1 -2 minutes in between strength training exercises. 1x a week was a nice change.
– Tube pulling and turning core exercises. Planked for 30 seconds 3x.
– Circuit in weight room doing full body exercises.
We think this comeback stories journey was the easiest and most fun way for this anonymous former 50 year old hockey star to return to the line up for the Toronto Maple Leafs Spring Golf team…
That was his goal wasn’t it….?.
We did have our Fitness Challenger perform a Maximal Heart Rate test that was certified by a highly regarded French doctor before performing any of these exercises.
What is Your Heart Rate for Training?
The usual way to find your training Heart Rate is using the 220 – age formula for determining Maximum Heart Rate.
Example: 220 – 50yr old = 170 Maximum Beats per minute while training.
See your doctor before starting any new Fitness Challenge .
Next week we will talk about making fitness fun.
Mark O’Neill and Shelley Donald are registered Personal Trainers
Web: www.oneillconditioning.com
Email: oneillconditioning@hotmail.com
