Monday, November 3, 2008

Heart Rate - to the extreme!

Today I hit the gym for my usual Monday morning work-out. I've been loving my cardio workouts, getting on the treadmill or cross trainer and cranking up my tunes so that I can exercise my little heart out. Even though my weight loss has stopped since around June, I have certainly felt the improvement in my fitness levels.

After feeling sufficiently pumped on 20mins on the cross trainer, I hopped on the treadmill and found there was an option that I had never seen before... "Extreme Heart Rate". Sounds interesting I thought to myself, plugged in all my options and then off I went. The aim was to get my HR to 163bpm (or around 85%). The first task was a hill and when the incline was sufficent for my heart to be absolutely pounding, the machine told me I needed to get my HR back down to 126bpm. Once it was down there the treadmill got me jogging until my HR reached 163bpm. And once it was there, I slowed right back down to get my HR back to normal (smart little treadmill!). This kept going for the 20mins I was on there...

I think they call this interval training, and it's supposed to strengthen your cardio fitness. I really loved it. It made the time go quickly, I wasn't busting my gut the whole time but I felt fitter every time the treadmill made my heart rate go up... It was weird, but awesome...

... to the extreme!!

LBG xx

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I love love love it! It rocks! But you felt awesome afterwards!!

Anonymous said...

That is pretty cool - I found an option pretty similiar on the exercise bike - I love the way it makes me feel.

Completely unrelated - extreme heart rate sounds like a tv show that should be hosted by Mike Whitney and Tania Zaetta.