Your 2009 fitness programme: Week 5

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By Gary Dawkins on Fri, 13 Feb 2009
Health | Body & Soul | Fitness
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Press-ups: These will be performed on your knees. Have your hands at the same width as your shoulders and out in front of you about 30cm. Tense your abdominal muscles and hold them tense throughout. Come down to right angles at your elbow joint and then back up and repeat. Photos by Gregor Richardson. Zig-zags: Walk from the hard sand down beside the water up to the soft sand at the base of the sand dunes. Walk on an angle of about 45 degrees so you are still making ground. Make certain you have a strong posture and arm action as you approach the soft sand. Keep the same speed throughout. Squats: Start with your hands out in front. Tense your abdominal muscles and hold them tense throughout the exercise. Have your legs hip width apart. Squat down (simply sit as though you are going to take a seat on a chair) to no lower than right angles at your knee joint. Make sure your knees remain behind your toes as you squat down. Come back up and repeat. Remember to keep breathing.
 

There are more exercises on the beach this week. If there are no beaches near by just do the same exercises on the park.

Friday: Beach day - complete a 20 minute fast walk in the hard sand first (8/10) on our effort scale. Now we complete the following body weight resistance exercises:
1. Squat in soft sand: complete 15 - 25 repetitions, rest 30-60 seconds and repeat this another 3 times.
2. Press ups in hard sand: complete 8-15 repetitions, rest 30-60 seconds and repeat this another 3 times.
3. Now walk for a further 20 minutes in the hard sand at a moderate pace (6/10) on our effort scale.

Saturday: Cruisy low pace long walk from home today. Walk duration is 70-85 minutes at an effort level of 5/10. Make this walk easy so it's best to do on flat terrain. After the body weight exercises yesterday we need to release the muscles today.

Sunday: Beach day - a great opportunity to take friends and family. Walk for 5 minutes in the hard sand as a warm up. Now start completing ‘zig-zags'. This is simply walking on an angle from the hard sand up to the base of the sand dunes where the sand is soft. Then turn and angle your way back down towards the water again and into the hard sand. When the sand starts becoming soft you need to really pump your arms and keep your posture strong with a tense mid region. Continue this ‘zig-zagging' for 20-30 minutes at an effort level of 8/10. You will notice your heart rate climbing steadily when you are walking through the softer sand.
1.Now complete a moderate pace walk back along the hard sand to your car.

Monday: Rest day - and of course our rest days will by now comprise of some form of activity!

Tuesday: Repeat Saturday's cruisy walk for 70-85 minutes.

Wednesday: Back to the beach. Today we walk for 20 minutes fast but on the soft sand (8/10) - this will be a lot harder than Fridays walk we completed down beside the water in the hard sand. Just remember to keep your arms pumping hard to help the legs.
Now we complete the following body weight resistance exercises:
1.Squats in the soft sand as we did on Friday: complete 20-30 repetitions, rest 30-60 seconds and repeat this another 3 times
2. Press ups in soft sand: complete 12-18 repetitions, rest 30-60 seconds and repeat this another 3 times.
3. Now complete 15 minutes of ‘zig-zag' walking as we did on Sunday.
4. Now walk back to the car on the hard sand at cruise pace.

Thursday: Again we repeat the long 70-85 minute cruisy walk (5/10). You should now be getting further than you did on Saturday and Tuesday. Try walking the same route as Saturday and measure how much further you are getting.

* IF YOU HAVE NO BEACH NEAR BY YOU CAN INSTEAD POWER WALK AT (10/10) EFFORT LEVEL FOR 1 MINUTE AND THEN WALK AT A SLOW SPEED (4/10) EFFORT LEVEL FOR 1 MINUTE

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