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Thursday, August 09, 2007

Holistic Weight Management- The Exercise Regimen- Cardio

Weight Management Mantra
A friend told the enthusisatic me who was trying to enter into a regimen of jogging daily- If you feel tired, you must stop, breath deeply and then continue jogging at the usual pace. You must not drag your feet and try to move for the sake of it.
The first day of jogging, I was stopping every half a minute as per her advice.
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Cardio
Begin with the warm up and joint mobilization as usual. The recommended cardio duration for me was 40 minutes
Treadmill- 20 minutes, EFX- 10 minutes, Stepper/ Cycling- 10 minutes
Treadmill
Since my goal was weight / fat loss, I was asked to maintain the weight loss zone heart rate (wear a pacemaker or look at the indicator on the machine to check the zone you are running). Weight loss zone focuses on fat loss whereas the cardio zone brings about cardio strengthening. Change the courses everyday. A recommended fat burning course is to do a guerilla method- use the manual mode, walk at optimal speed for 4 minutes, then for the next 4 minutes do an alternate of sprint for 20 seconds and walk for 10 seconds. End with a 4 minute normal walking.
Brisk walking with a speed of 4.5-5.5 is enough, alternating with incline of 3.5-4 every 3 minutes.
Ensure you walk without holding the treadmill bar/ handle otherwise instead of the legs carrying your weight; the arms lend a helping hand.

EFX- focuses on the butt and legs
Cycle- Focuses on lower abdomen, legs
Stepper- Strengthens the legs.
Use a combination of atleast 3 machines to ensure better fat burning as the body does not get used to a set pattern

Follow the cardio with Abdominal Exercises. The cardio mobilizes fat burning and thereby maximizes the abs that you will do next.
The more you hold/ pulse the more will be the resistance put to the abs
Focus on doing it right and use the abdominal muscles rather than other parts of the body for the crunches.
Suck the tummy in while exercising and keep breathing right

1 comment:

Sukhaloka said...

I see Mister Lost Poet has decided to give you a hand with the blog as well. Remember me mentioning him? ;)

and BTW.. the weight loss thingies flummox me completely. Am a yoga person, I guess.