When it comes to exercise, routine is your enemy. Your body must constantly be forced to guess what crazy new workouts you decide to do. This practice prevents your muscles and physiological systems from gradually adapting to the demands you place on them. While some training programs address this adaptation by completely changing the set, reps, and exercise routine of the training program every 4-8 weeks, I’d like to explain a less common idea: changing the daily intensity. For the purposes of this article, I will incorporate three different intensities: high, medium, and low. With a routine like this, you won’t have to worry about changing your training mode every few weeks, as long as you constantly plug in and play new exercises.
Think of your body as the engine of a car. Low intensity would imply being idle at a traffic light. Its main fuel is fat and its actual caloric expenditure is low. There is still a good amount of blood flow to exercise the muscles, but the actual cardiovascular stress and tearing of the fibers in the muscle are minimal. You’re not breathing heavily, talking to your gym buddies isn’t stressful, and your muscles don’t really burn that much. This intensity is ideal for recovery training or strength / power training with long breaks between sets. Potentially, you could go for several hours at this intensity and still be able to do another workout the next day.
You are navigating the highway in medium intensity mode. Your breathing and heart rate speed up a bit, you may feel a burn in your working muscles, and your main fuel is a mixture of fats and carbohydrates. Mental focus is usually a bit higher than low intensity mode, and the workout itself is challenging, but not overwhelming. You can usually exercise the next day, but you generally want to avoid stressing the same muscle groups.
In high intensity mode, you are working 100% with maximum effort. Muscles are constantly burning, respiration and heart rate are very high, carbohydrates are the main source of fuel, and caloric expenditure is through the roof (as is your post-workout metabolism). The whole body is tired after this type of training and generally needs around 24 hours of rest from very easy work afterwards. Many times, it can be difficult to mentally force yourself to * start * one of these types of workouts, although once it’s kicked in and the adrenaline kicks in, energy levels naturally rise.
The key to the sample workout program outlined below is that the low, medium, and high intensities stack up so your body responds optimally and recovers optimally from each workout. So here is an example of daily intensity based training for a fairly frequent 6 day workout routine.
Day 1 (i.e. Monday): high intensity cardio intervals (shorter, i.e. 20 minutes) with high intensity full-body resistance training (longer, i.e. 45 minutes), incorporating back-to-back sets, challenging weights, difficult training scenarios, and short rest periods.
Day 2: Long, steady low-intensity cardio (i.e., more than 45 minutes), no lifting. Good day for outdoor exercise, such as a walk or a bike ride.
Day 3: Intervals of high intensity cardio with medium intensity full body lift, which mainly incorporates body weight training. Great day to experiment and try new exercises and / or group exercise classes.
Day 4: Long, steady, low-intensity cardio (i.e., more than 45 minutes), no lifting.
Day 5: Medium intensity cardio (shorter, ie 20 minutes) with low intensity lifting (longer, ie 45 minutes). For lifting, incorporate heavier weights with longer rest periods and focus on slow, controlled movements with perfect form and little to no ballistic activity.
Day 6: High intensity cardio (longer, that is, 45 minutes) with high intensity training for the whole body (shorter, that is, 20 minutes). Great day to try the Weekly Trainer Challenge, plus some extra cardio.
Day 7: active rest. It is not equal to sofa + coupons. Get up and move around, but don’t put too much stress on your body.
There you go. This type of exercise routine allows for sufficient recovery after periods of high intensity, while also allowing for maximum calorie burn and efficient workouts. There are many different ways to approach this routine (in terms of exercises, specific cardio intervals, etc.). Just let me know if I can help you put together a training plan … you can email me at [email protected].
