A Workout For The New Year

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     You get home and you are exhausted or you want to get up and do something but don't have a lot of time before getting ready for school.  If you want to walk and/or run as part of your workout then this might work for you.  I did mine at lunch today to start the new year right.

     I started doing this workout a couple of years ago to get myself back into running.  When I started I had a hard time running a lap on the track and I was 70 pounds overweight.  Today I'm not much better but I do try to do a monthly 5K and I'm only about 50 pounds overweight.  So you can do this.

     This will get you through 2+ miles (if you can run at least one lap) and will get you about a mile and a half if you can only walk a lap.  The goal is to keep moving for about 30 minutes.  So, if you are faster then adjust by adding some distance to this and I'll explain that at the end.

Here's the workout and I'll explain after:

          1.  Jog (or walk) one lap on a track (or for 4 or 5 minutes) at an easier pace than you do for a 5K.(Note 1)

          2.  Do 10 pushups concentrating on form. (Note 2)

          3.  Walk a half of a lap (or for 3 minutes).

          4.  Run (or walk at a quicker pace) to the end of the lap (Note 1)

          5.  Do 9 pushups concentrating on form. (Note 2)

          6.  Walk a half of a lap (or for 3 minutes).

          7.  Run (or walk) the straight part of the track at faster than a 5K pace (Note 1) then walk to the end of this lap.

          8.  Do 8 pushups concentrating on form. (Note 2)

          9.  Run (or walk) the straight part of the track at faster than a 5K pace (Note 1) then walk the curved part of the track.  Then run the second straight and walk the final curve to the end of this lap.

        10.  Do 7 pushups concentrating on form. (Note 2)

        11.  Repeat steps 1 - 10 with decreasing pushups at the end of each lap (6,5,4,3 pushups).

        12.  At the end you may want to walk one complete lap as a cool down.  Total time should be between 25 and 35 minutes depending on your speed.

NOTE 1:  The running/jogging/walking will be at various speeds. I try to do this on a track.  I run the first lap at a slower than 5K pace and I start at the beginning of one of the straight-aways.  My "formula" has you run a complete 1st lap, run half and walk half for the 2nd lap, run only the second straight-away on the 3rd lap and run both of the straight-aways on the final lap.  The straights are done at a faster than normal 5K pace.  I like to run in lane 1 (or 2 if there are faster runners) for the 1st  and 5th lap, lane 2 for the 2nd and 6th lap, etc.  This will help you keep track of the lap you are on.

NOTE 2:  The pushups are done at the end of each lap or at the end of every 3 to 5 minutes (depending on the speed).  You start with 10, then decrease by one for each lap.  This may be a lot in the beginning but is a small enough number that you can really focus on good form.  You may always increase the number once you can do them all with great form.  At the end you will have done 52 pushups.

     Finally, once you are comfortably doing this workout with all of the pushups and you are consistently below 30 minutes you will want to add distance to complete a full 30 minutes.  I like to add full laps at a 5K pace.  If you get to the point that you are running 3 miles and completing all of the pushups start adding additional pushups or some other exercise to work your upper body or core.

     Happy New Year and hope you find this useful.  I'll be back talking about PBL in the next post.