Hello friends! In honor of “Throwback Thursday” (#tbt), here are 4 of my all-time favorite cardio workouts from the Grit by Brit archives. If you’re traveling for the holidays and unable to attend your favorite workout class, these circuits are an excellent alternative that can be done on your own. I hope you enjoy. Stay Sweaty 😉 xoxo, Brit
Goin’ hard is great, but be sure to give your body some down time. On the weekends, I literally wear myself out teaching group fitness classes. So during the week days, I try to mix in an Active Recovery workout. For instance, this morning I did this “Treadmill Recovery Workout” at my hotel gym. It’s great fitness option because it keeps my cardio up, burns calories (about 250) and lets my joints recover so I can go hard next weekend.
Keep in mind, that extreme (high intensity) workouts are not intended to be performed more than 3X per week. This means no CrossFit or running sprints every single day! If we don’t give our muscles time to recover, they never rebuild. We want our muscles to rebuild because that’s how we develop more lean muscle mass. More lean muscle mass = more strength AND more calories burned while our bodies are resting – yay!
Try my “Treadmill Recovery Workout” on one of you lower intensity days and let me know how it goes. Enjoy!
Take it easy every now and then! Lots of luv, Brit
Me gettin’ a sweat going on the hotel treadmill, Thursday 5/17
This week I had to travel to Cleveland for a client workshop, meaning my only option for a workout space was my “lovely” hotel gym. Unfortunately, this hotel’s gym consisted of 1 treadmill, 1 broken elliptical, and a yoga mat…that said, I had to make the best of an unfortunate situation. This got me thinking, I need to have options for effective and engaging treadmill workouts to hold me over in times like these. So, I put together these 3, 20 minute treadmill workouts. Each one burns 200-350 calories – NOT BAD! Hopefully you find these exercises helpful. If you are trying to get more into fitness but don’t have a treadmill at home, then you might want to check out something like this FitnessVerve. What’s not to love about having you own home gym?
Feel free to print, try out for yourself and keep handy when you’re looking to shake up your treadmill routine. Also, don’t forget that a jammin’ 20 minute playlist ALWAYS gives you a boost – Enjoy 🙂
What Goes Up…Must Come Down (walking) – Walk at a speed of at least 3.0/mph. Start at 0.0 (zero) incline and increase the incline by 1.0 every 1 minute. After 10 minutes (when you reach level 10 incline) lower the incline by 1.0 every minute until you get back to 0.0 (zero).
Walk, Sprint … Repeat (sprinting intervals) – Start by walking at least 3.0 mph and 1.0 incline – NEVER GO BELOW 1.0 INCLINE. After 3 minutes, sprint at least 7.0 mph for 2 minutes. Repeat the walk/sprint cycle 4 times for a 20 minute workout.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race (jogging) – Start by jogging at least 5.0 mph with an incline of 1.0. After 2 minutes, increase your incline to a level that is “challenging” (i.e. makes you breathe heavy, difficult to talk). Keep the incline here for 3 minutes, then take it back down to the starting 1.0 level. For the next minute, increase your speed to a faster jogging pace, at least 6.0. Repeat this 5 minute cycle 4 times.
