Change it up - Cross Trainer

Habits are good right? Hmmm ... maybe. We all have our favorite routines, machines and workouts.  Doing the same workout allows us to measure progress in terms of calories spent and other metrics.

The problem is our bodies are so danged adaptable. To stay on top of the "muscle confusion" confusion concept, our cardio workouts need to be changed up often.

How to do that ... Here are some cross trainer workout variations

a. Gradual increase in resistance throughout the workout. Start at a low intensity. Every 3 minutes increase the intensity till failure. DO NOT STOP. Drop the intensity back to the starting level and repeat the step up.

b. Do the a.) workout but this time, make it an interval workout. Go for 1 minute at or near full effort. Then 2 minutes at 50% effort ... all while gradually increasing intensity. Attempt to reach same max intensity and then roll back to initial starting intensity.

c. Do the same again as a.) but this time only go 1 minute between step ups in intensity. When you reach the max intensity, go back to one level higher than your initial starting intensity and then progress to the max again. Roll back to the beginning, adding another level to the starting point in the cycle.

d. For any of the workouts, rotate between forward stepping and backward stepping; for example, go 2 minutes forward and then 1 minute backwards.

e. If the cross trainer has an upper body component, structure a workout where you are going for example 2 minutes with hands NOT on the upper body bars (working only legs) and 1 minute on. Progress over the workouts by increasing the time in "legs only" mode compared to normal hands-on mode. If you haven't done "legs only" you may well be surprised at the amount of "help" your upper body is lending to the workout.

If you are on this piece of equipment at least several times a week, use of these workouts as your baseline workout attempting to increase time at higher levels or increasing the maximum level achieved. Calories expended are notoriously inaccurate HOWEVER, if you are using the same machine and I mean literally the same machine, not just the same model of machine, you can measure relative progress by the increase in what the machine says calories expended are.

Also, use a heart rate monitor to ensure that you are spending an adequate amount of time in fat-burning mode.

Lastly, as if there isn't enough to keep track of, over time, monitor the time it takes to drop heart rate after high rates of exertion. This is the real measure of cardio vascular fitness. In order to effectuate this improvement you need to incorporate interval training as described above (other forms of interval training exist also.)