Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Workout of the Day

Today's workout consisted of a Tabata series (see info. on Tabata below) involving a Step-Up with a DB Press. Simply, step up onto a step-up box (or bench) with the right foot and press a dumbbell overhead with the left arm (during the same time your bringing your left foot up onto the step-up box). Then repeat for as many reps as you can get in 20 seconds - rest for 10 seconds - and repeat for 4 minutes. Today, I perfomed 4 intervals (2:00) on the right side and then switched to the left side and did another 4 intervals (2:00). I used a great new device that I just ordered called the GymBoss (see GymBoss.com) that actually counts off the time and beeps after each interval.

20 seconds work
10 seconds recovery

repeat for 8 intervals (total time = 4:00)

My Tabata was preceeded with 6:00 easy bike and 3:00 row and followed with an 5:00 easy ride on the bike to rid my muscles of some of the lactic acid build-up. More information on lactic acid HERE. Also, read this story in the NY Times on this topic. For the science students out there here is another great article that I read on lactate from the UC Berkeley Newsletter.

Last week I did Tabata workouts on both the Bike and Erg (rower) using the same format as the DB Step-up to Press. For the Bike I rode hard for 20 seconds at 300+ Watts followed by an easy recovery (<100 W) for 10 seconds and repeated this 8x. Same idea for the Erg. Try it and let me know your thoughts or any questions you may have. Remember it's a 2:1 work to rest format.

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