anyways i had a member ask me for advice the other day. he used to be an avid runner--like an hour a day. crazy/kudos. but he has had surgery on his heart, knee, and neck within the last few years and has been told that he shouldn't even be running. well, from personal experience, i know that you can't stop doing things that you love just because you have a set back. it's something you have to work with really. so he has gained some weight since his surgeries and wants to get back into shape, but with his heart problems (he goes into atrial fib and can get to the point where he needs the paddles to come out to set him back on a regular beat) he isn't going to be able to work up to his hour of running a day, unless he wants to die, as i told him.
so he wanted to know what he could do to lose weight a different way. i told him he could still run maybe half an hour a day a few times a week; he has a heart monitor so he can keep track of his heart rate and we figured out he shouldn't go past about 70% of his max heart rate (you can figure this out roughly by subtracting your age from 220, but, especially for women, this isn't really accurate and probably too high for most).
i told him his best bet would be to try some interval training as well as different strengthening exercises. i figured i'd share some of the ideas i showed him because i'm sure there are a lot of people out there with similar issues or who are just looking for something to give there workouts a little boost.
Workout #1 - Core Strengthening
- Front Planks 3 sets x 30 sec. each
- Side Planks 2 sets x 30 sec. each
- Basic Pushups 3 sets 15 reps
- V-ups 1 set 15-25 reps
- Back Bridges 3 sets of 20 w/ 3 sec. hold at top of bridge
- Russian twist 1 set of 50 w/ medicine ball
- Wall Ball Squats 3 sets of 10
- Lunge w/ a twist 3 sets of 10
all of the reps at sets can obviously be tweaked based on your ability and if you're beginner, intermediate, etc. core strength is really important to life in general so doing something like this three times a week in addition to some sort of cardio or by itself would be a great way to tone up and even help with posture as well as joint stability.
