Are You Wasting Your Time Jogging On A Treadmill?

You know the feeling: winter's finally over, the first waves of warm spring air are creeping through the windows and the beach is calling. But you have a little problem... All winter long you’ve been reaching for warming comfort foods and hibernating in the safety of your lounge room, complete with super-charged heater and a cupboard stacked full of tasty goodies, a pile of your favourite DVDs on hand to help you escape the winter chill.Sure, you regularly set your alarm to get up and exercise but to be honest, you could count the number of times you actually crawled out from under the doona to work up a sweat on one hand.So now that it’s time to shake off the hoodies and slip into your favourite bikini or pair of board shorts, well, let’s just say it’s not the most comfortable experience a person could have. So… what to do about it?For most of us, the only solution we can think of is to pull on a pair of joggers and start slogging it out with a nice, long run on the treadmill or elliptical trainer... you may even venture out for a real run in the great outdoors once or twice. Well done for making a start!The problem with this kind of steady, continuous (and dare we say boring?) training however, is that although you’ll see results initially, within a few weeks of starting you begin to plateau, or even go backwards a little. Not only that, you’re getting pretty darn bored! This is when your resolve starts to slip and before you know it, you’re back under that doona.So… how can you get better results, more quickly and have more fun doing it? The answer is interval training and the good news is, there are SO many ways to do it.Read on to discover why cardio machines and steady state training are not the best option and our top three suggestions for burning off that winter flab FAST with different kinds of interval training. 

Reasons you may be wasting your time pounding the (fake) pavement

• Treadmills, ellipticals and exercise bikes are massively boring. Well, it's true! While you might find it easy to stick to your routine for a few weeks, while spring fever is running high and you're feeling super motivated, as soon as that initial surge of motivation ebbs away, you're stuck plugging away doing the same old thing for what seems like forever, just to burn a measly few hundred calories!
• Doing mindless steady state exercise while watching TV, reading a magazine or tuning out to your iPod can create a mind/body disconnect, meaning you get less results from the exercise you're doing and are more likely to lose interest too.
• Studies have proven that interval training can be up to nine times more effective than longer, slower cardio sessions. This means that doing 20 minutes of interval training only three times per week will get you better results than many hours of steady cardio exercise. Now that's a statistic we love!

Our top three ways to use interval training to burn fat FAST and keep it off

• If you really love your cardio machines and can’t give them up, next time you leap on to the treadmill or cycle, ditch your magazine and try this: warm up at an easy pace for 5 minutes, until you start to break a light sweat. Now increase your pace until you’re sprinting hard (an 8-9 effort out of 10) for 10-20 seconds. Ease back to a jog (about a 5-6 effort) for 30-40 seconds. Repeat this process for 15-25 minutes, then cool down with a jog. As your fitness increases, so should your sprint time. Work up to one minute’s sprint work, followed by one minute’s recovery.
• Ready to take your workout into the great outdoors? Did you know that running on real turf burns a LOT more calories than running on a treadmill? Jog to a (long-ish) hill or set of stairs and sprint up to the top as fast as you can, then make your way back down slowly. Repeat 10 times. Want to keep track of your progress? Time how long it takes you to get to the top each time and work out your average over the ten runs. Take note of how your averages improve as your fitness builds.
• Did you know you can get an awesome cardio workout without actually running or cycling at all? Create a bodyweight resistance workout, or use weights to get your heart rate through the roof. Circuit training is the perfect way to burn fat fast, so pick 6 exercises (for example, any variation of squats, push-ups, lunges, rows or back extensions, core and either jump rope or a plyometric exercise like burpees), then set a timer and complete each exercise for one full minute, working as hard as you can with either pace or weight, then recover for 20-30 seconds before starting your next exercise. Play with your work and recovery times (e.g. 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest, or completing all exercises back-to-back for 30 seconds each, then resting for 90 seconds before starting over) to keep your body guessing and keep the results coming!

 Let me finish by saying that if long, steady jogs on a treadmill or around the block are what you enjoy most, then by all means keep doing ‘em because any exercise is better than no exercise BUT if it’s quick results you want to see and a summer body you want, then try interval training… you’ll never look back!