Only 2 more days left in November Crew!

We’ve worked so hard this month and there’s no quitting now. Push hard…one day of Abs and one day of Hips….then we start a brand new fresh month!

Don’t let these last two days of November slip away…it’s been a great month so finish strong!

Day 29 exercises: Abs – 3 sets – :30 per exercise

****Click here for how to videos****

• Roll Up
• Pilates Scissors
• Bird Dog Crunch – right side
• Boat Pose
• Bird Dog Crunch – left side
• Side Planks – :30 each side

Bonus: Russian Twists – 4 sets of 25 (100 total) – Use weights!

Speed Work: Gear Shifter (Fartlek Run)

It’s important to focus on getting into the exercise habit; making your run a regular part of your routine, finding times and places to exercise that feel convenient and comfortable, and finding a way to enjoy it so you keep it up for the long term.

To get fitter and faster you can add time to your workout or increase the distance you cover. But you can also add structured workouts to your routine. These structured workouts, which involve running specific intervals or time or distance at a specific pace, help you develop endurance, speed, and stronger legs and lungs. And they can keep your exercise regime from getting stale.

Workout: Gear Shifter

How to Do It: In this workout, alternate between your easy, medium, and fast paces. Warm up with three to five minutes of walking. Then ramp up to your easy pace (see below) and hold it for two to three minutes. Then shift into your medium pace and sustain it for one minute. Then shift into the fast pace for 30 seconds. Repeat the cycle two or three times. Walk for five minutes to cool down.

Use this guide to find each gear:

Easy: Conversational pace; a pace where you could chat with a friend running alongside you. This is a rhythm that feels like you could maintain it all day long if you had to.

Medium: This should be faster than your easy pace, but you shouldn’t feel like you’re speeding. You would prefer not to hold a full conversation, but if someone asked you a question, you could answer in two- or three-word sentences.

Fast: Quicker than your medium pace. In this gear you should be able to say one or two words but, if someone asked you a question, it would make you mad because you wouldn’t want to expend the energy to answer them. Don’t sprint all-out or push to the point of pain, or where you feel you’re going to pull something. You should feel like “I’m okay, I just don’t want to do this for very long.”

This workout will elevate your heart rate, boost your fitness and calorie burn, and keep you from falling into a rut with the same easy pace. It ups the intensity, recruits different muscle fibers, and makes running fun!

Speed work is another way we can help stay injury-free. If you run the same pace all the time, you recruit the same muscle fibers, in the exact same way over and over. This same repetitive motion can cause common overuse injuries, like runner’s knee and IT-band syndrome.

Susan Paul, coach, exercise physiologist, and founder of the Orlando Track Foundation says, “If you mix up your paces, you recruit different muscle fibers, and some different muscles. You get more balanced out.”

This is a more structured fartlek session then we’ve done previously. Instead of just picking a distance and running to it, peek at your watch and try to hold the pace for the specific times set out above. If you do a run/walk, use the “easy/conversational” pace as your walk. This kind of workout can be done on a track…but it can also be done on the road so there’s no excuses! Go outside and ramp up the speed!

Remember, speed work isn’t just about getting faster. It also promotes stronger legs and lungs, gives us more endurance, and keeps our workouts from getting old and boring.

What do you have to lose? Try it!!

That’s all for day 29 Crew….abs, Russian Twist bonus, and our Gear Shifter speed work. At least plan your speed work to make it happen this week.

If you’re thinking about slowing down in these last two days…think about what kind of athlete slows down when they see the finish line.

YOU are an athlete…don’t slow down. Sprint towards that finish line and cross it with power and strength!