You are probably familiar with the “Go Green” movement of environmentalism; an effort to make our agricultural and industrial practices more sustainable and improve land, water, and air quality. You may even know the 3 R’s of environmental protection: reduce, reuse, recycle.
Kudos if you exercise your responsibility to make the planet a better place by doing your part to protect the environment. We hope that you apply a similar consciousness to creating a sustainable exercise routine for yourself and that you exercise the 3 R’s of a healthy training program: recover, rest, and replenish.
You have heard us discuss rest and recovery on Fitness Friday multiple times. We have also talked about replenishment from the perspective of fueling your exercise (nutrition).
In short, it is important to recover during your workout if you are performing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or higher intensity bouts (allowing for work and recovery phases). It is also important to recover at the end of your workout, during your cool down.
Rest is also an important factor between workouts. If you perform a higher intensity workout one day (YELLOW and/or RED zones), it is a sound practice to integrate a rest day or active recovery day (BLUE and/or GREEN zones) the next day.
Nutritional and psychological replenishment are key to a sustainable exercise routine. We need to fuel our exercise (pre and post) in a way that supports our goals. We also need to participate in activities that restore us psychologically so that our mental game is strong.
In order to support you in the 3 R’s of a healthy training program, we are going to introduce two “Go Green” workouts for you to try! As the name implies, these workouts focus on the GREEN zone, a moderate intensity zone – one that is sustainable and offers us recovery! Read more about the GREEN zone here, and watch our GREEN zone Fitness Friday here.
The first workout is cardio focused, and the second is muscular fitness and cardio focused. Grab your MYZONE heart rate wearable to make sure you're exercising in the right zone.
Please be sure to warm up for at least 5 to 10 minutes in the BLUE and GREEN zones before you start this workout. You will get the most out of your workout if you warm up first.
Choose three pieces of cardio equipment that you would like to use for this workout (i.e. treadmill, elliptical, and cycle). Next, perform two rounds of 3-minute x 2-minute tempo training on each piece (a total of 10 minutes on each piece).
Here is what a round looks like:
Maintain GREEN zone for 3 steady minutes, then either RECOVER down to BLUE for 2 minutes, OR, if you are feeling like you want to push, WORK in the YELLOW zone for 2 minutes.
Repeat for a total of two rounds on each piece of cardio (switch between pieces quickly).
Cool down (recover) for 3 to 5 minutes in the BLUE zone to finish. Keep an eye on your heart rate wearable to ensure you stay in the correct zones for the routine to have the proper effect.
You will perform HIIT for this circuit of 7 exercises! You will WORK for 40 seconds, and RECOVER for 20 seconds.
Here’s the catch…you MUST hit GREEN before you can start the next exercise! Therefore, you will want to control your heart rate and not go too far up into the YELLOW zone during your work phase so that you can recover into GREEN before the next exercise.
The 7 exercises are squat, deadlift, push press, bent over row, push up, hip bridge, and thread the needle plank. Choose weights that will challenge you, but that will allow you to recover back into GREEN before the next exercise.
For each exercise:
WORK phase (40 seconds): perform as many quality repetitions as possible for 40 seconds with a weight that challenges you.
RECOVERY phase (20 seconds): either passively recover (light walk or grab a drink of water), OR perform body weight repetitions of the exercise to recover. REMEMBER: You must hit GREEN before you can move to the next exercise, so keep an eye on what zone you're in using your heart rate wearable. If you need a longer recovery, take it.
Perform 3 rounds of all 7 exercises!
How are you using the GREEN zone in your workouts? We’d love to see what you are doing. Use the hashtags #effortrewarded and #myzonemoves when you post your pics. Don’t forget to add your workout pics and rate your moves in your Activity Calendar!
For more tips on how to use the MYZONE heart rate wearable and app, follow us during Fitness Fridays on Facebook Live (subscribe on MYZONE’s Facebook Page) – 8 am PT, 11 am ET, and check out our MYZONE Moves Podcast on iTunes or Google Play.
Keep moving forward!