Wednesday 31st October - Best Laid Plans

After the last few weeks of Blog's a friend rang me to tell me that she has given me the title of "Calorie Killer" as she thinks that is what my life is about. Harsh but kind of true. If I want to be healthy then I need to use it or store it.

Storage of any kind always costs you so I plan to use it (must destroy excess calories - in terminator voice).

Now to today's blog title.
You may have heard of the saying "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray" .... this line comes from a poem by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
The premise is that no matter how much you plan, some things may still go wrong.
We can all think of times in our lives when this has happened.
Today was that day for me.

Being ex-military I am known to friends as a planner and have been accused in the past of being very structured. Well it works for me.

So I thought I would share with you how I dealt with the issues as they arose. I woke up a little later than I had planned and everything could have gone down hill from there as my alarm hadn't gone off. Instead I smiled and decided that I wasn't going to skimp on "my Tony time". This is the first 10 minutes of each day I try to sit and just breathe, tried meditation but it wasn't easy for the former kid with undiagnosed A.D.D. who is now the adult with the innovative creative streak.
I did it anyway - and the world waited. I felt good for not compromising my plan.

I then had my energy shake (I do this every morning as it is part of the RAINBOW Nutrient Eating Plan that I have designed with my book).
I took a look at my diary and it was a full day.

In the diary plan I still had allowed for my 1 hour workout. Getting changed into my workout gear the phone rang. It was an appointment that had to be changed and this meant that my workout time was in jeopardy as they wanted to move up the meeting time. I had two choices now - do it or ditch it. Instead of just "not doing the workout" I made a decision to modify my plan because when I develop a lifestyle plan for others I want to know that it actually works. I'm a believer in the "do as I do" principle and not just "do as I say" like others would suggest.

Sure, it was easy for me to modify as I have been a fitness professional for a long time. So I'm going to tell you what I did and then you will have the tools so that you can modify your plans when you need to.

I had 30 minutes of workout time.
So I decided today it was going to look like this - focus on a cardio based session:

10 mins of cardiovascular conditioning
- 2 mins easy (walk for 2 or walk 1 / jog 1)
- 3 mins medium (jog low - med speed)
- 5 x 1 min intervals of med to hard (adjust this for your own fitness levels)

10 mins of lean muscle conditioning
(all body parts using opposing muscle groups. Now for this I was working on lighter weights with 15-20 reps. This is a no rest workout. You go from one exercise to the next with recovery being a different muscle group). It is also the plan for the new AFTERBURNER WORKOUTS that I am designing and you are seeing it first.

- chest press (pushup as alternative) then back row (pulldown as alternative)
- shoulder press then bicep curls then tricep dips
- bodyweight squats with alternate lunges (for overload principle)

NOTE - you have 10 minutes so make the most of it. If you don't get through all the exercises a few times don't stress just do what you can in the alloted time then back to cardio.

10 mins of cardiovascular conditioning / cooldown
our body is warm now so let's reverse then intensity principle and start with our last 5 mins of the "first" cardio section
- 5 x 1 min intervals (hard / med / hard / med / hard)
- 5 min cooldown (2 mins jog + 3 mins walk)

DONE out the door you go. Don't forget to load up the body with nutrient loaded, energy providing calories. It is that simple and easy.

For all those that are asking about Stretching. I have left this up to the individual but as we are working more on a Circuit principle there will be "less delayed onset muscle soreness" not none but less. If you can find an extra minute or two then do some.

The next time you have 30 minutes you could reverse it look like this :

Walk to the gym or park a little more further away (cardio warm up) or do this one
5 mins of cardiovascular conditioning
- 2 mins easy (walk for 2 or walk 1 / jog 1)
- 3 mins medium (jog low - med speed)

This is a focus on lean muscle conditioning broken up by cardiovascular training.
10 mins of lean muscle conditioning
(all body parts using opposing muscle groups. Now for this I was working on lighter weights with 15-20 reps. This is a no rest workout. You go from one exercise to the next with recovery being a different muscle group).

- chest press (pushup as alternative) then back row (pulldown as alternative)
- shoulder press then bicep curls then tricep dips
- bodyweight squats with alternate lunges (for overload principle)

NOTE - you have 10 minutes so make the most of it. If you don't get through all the exercises a few times don't stress just do what you can in the alloted time then back to cardio.

10 mins of cardiovascular conditioning
our body is warm now so let's use the intensity principles for the cardio section
- 7 x 1 min intervals (hard / med / hard / med / hard)
- 3 min (3 mins walk or 3 mins jog - depending on your fitness levels)

5 mins lean muscle conditioning - try to get through all the exercises once.
- chest press (pushup as alternative) then back row (pulldown as alternative)
- shoulder press then bicep curls then tricep dips
- bodyweight squats with alternate lunges (for overload principle)

5 mins cooldown on a piece of cardio equipment or walk home / back to car


In a few days I will post the 60 minute version but you clever people will have it worked out already.

Peace - from the "Calorie Killer"