We have officially reached the time of year where I embrace the treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining about temperatures ranging from the 20s-40s when that’s balmy for many of you (and I am fondly remembering all those 70 degree runs I had in November and December). What I do find is that it becomes necessary for me to get my body warmed up on the treadmill before I do any sort of lifting. When I’m bundled up and feeling cold, it helps me to work up a little bit of heat and sweat before I do strength work.
So this week I have been doing a lot of short treadmill interval workouts before my strength work and I feel like my workouts are about a billion times better for it! Also, intervals are my favorite way to pack a mega punch in a short amount of time.
Here’s the weekly workout recap. Heavy on strength and yoga.
Monday
REST
Tuesday
4 miles of treadmill intervals + strength
Treadmill Intervals
10 minutes warm up
5 minutes hill intervals at 45 seconds on/15 seconds rest, starting at 6% and working up to a 10% incline
5 minutes of hill intervals at 20 seconds on/10 seconds rest, working between 8% and 10%
5 minutes sprint intervals at 45 seconds on/15 seconds rest, working down to about a 7 min mile pace
5 minutes sprint intervals at 20 second on/10 seconds rest, working down to 6 min mile pace
This is a recipe for sweaty.
Upper Body Strength
10×3:
Bench Press (70#)
Cable Machine Standing Rows
Lat Pulldowns
Straight Bar Bicep Curls (30#)
Cable Machine Tricep Press Downs
Wednesday
1 mile warm up on treadmill + Strength/CrossFit-ish workout + hot yoga
I did 5 rounds and this workout took me a little under 25 minutes to complete.
Thursday
Hot yoga
Friday
2 mile treadmill run + strength + Ashtanga
Treadmill
5 minutes warm up
5 minutes hill intervals at 45 on/15 off at 10% incline
7 minutes sprint intervals at 45 on/15 off at sub-7 pace
Strength
3 rounds:
15 barbell deadlifts (95#)
15 dumbbell chest flies (20#)
15 weighted step ups (20# dumbbell each arm, 20′ step)
15 ring rows
15 bicep curls (15#)
15 tricep dips
Saturday
Hot yoga
Sunday
Ashtanga yoga
What’s your favorite way to warm up?
What’s your favorite way to make a treadmill run interesting and challenging?
What’s your current workout focus?
I’d love your take on the 30-minute 9Round workout. You can take one class for free – would be so fun if you gave it a try and reported back on how effective you think it is. I’ve been enjoying it but would love a fitness professional’s perspective.
I plan on trying it soon! One just opened by the yoga studio where I teach.
Awesome! Can’t wait to hear what you think!
What a week of workouts!! Love the intensity and the variety!
Thanks! Switching it up keeps it interesting!
I would love to do more treadmill interval workouts, but I’m always frustrated by the constant button pushing and the time it takes for the machine to speed up and slow down. Especially when some intervals are as short as 10 seconds, it takes that whole time just to switch speeds. I feel like my hand is on the button all the time and my form suffers. Any suggestions?
Yep, I just hop to the sides of the treadmill on the rest periods and carefully make my way back on.
A great week of workouts; lots of great ideas!
I just wanted to clarify, for the Add five reps workout, you add five reps of each exercise every round? So you would begin with the number shown, and then the following round would be 10 handstand pushups, 15 burpees, 20 squats, 25 kettlebell swings, and so on? Thanks so much!
Nope, same number of reps every round. Add 5 was a take on 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 rep scheme!
Looks like an awesome week of workouts as usual! I want to try the Add 5 workout.
My favorite way to warmup is with a lot of dynamic stretches and pilates-type exercises.
Current workout focus is just staying strong, doing my indoor cardio, and staying warm…LOL! I need to get back onto the treadmill workouts again. They are hard, challenging, and hot sweaty mess. Happy Monday friend!
loved your 5, 10, 15 workout and programmed it to an at home workout this morning while my baby was napping: 5 pushups, 10 weighted squats, 15 KB swings, 10 ST2B, 5 ab wheel rollouts. times 5! was awesome 🙂
Great week! I do splits: a heavy heavy squat day, a heavy bench day, a back day, an upper pump day (biceps/tris/OH press), and a deadlift centric day. I’ll usually get in 1-2 90 min hot yoga sessions a week, maybe 1 spin class, and a killer bootcamp on Sundays. Very little cardio — I just lift weights faster and will add in core/KB swings/burpees/any sort of finisher at the end of every lift. I’ve found any sort of steady state cardio does zero for my body and really just makes me look soft!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for blogging, Jen. Your blog is a favorite, and you always have great topics, workouts & recipes. I truly enjoy trying all of these! I loathe treadmill running (boring!) so I tried your interval workout last night and it was killer! Thanks for sharing the details of your training and nutrition and helping us along the way! I had been debating trying Whole30 (trying to get the husband on board) for several months now, and with the help of your food ideas I plan to give it a go next month! Thanks again for the time you take to spread such good vibes on the interwebs. 🙂