Favorite Workout

Ryan from TSLRF talks a lot about personal fitness and I generally agree. I am not a workout junkie and he goes a lot further than I do in the gym, but there are definitely benefits to being in shape. After six months of rotten work hours, lots of microwave meals, and few/no opportunities to work out I am getting back into the swing of things.

The best workout routine I've ever found, for me, at least, is pretty simple. Warm up, stretch, run three miles then do some strength training and core work. If you run three miles then do another 20 minutes of pushups, weights, crunches, etc then you will lose weight and get in better shape. Wrap up with a quarter of a mile jog or walk to prevent stiffening up and then stretch out at the end for bonus points.

Running a mile or two is not enough. You need to be doing 20+ minutes of good cardio to get your heart rate up high enough that it will stay high during your strength/core workout. Additionally, I think just about anyone can gut through a mile. I am consistently surprised at the number of people that have trouble with three. I think a lot of that is mental, and regularly running three miles helps build some mental and emotional discipline which is a good thing.

As a variation sometimes I do 10 minutes of more intense cardio -- like sprints or something -- then 5-10 mins of core/strength, then repeat three times. That is also pretty effective at keeping my heart rate up.

My personal fitness goals are pretty minor; I just want to stay at a healthy weight, be able to do the activities I enjoy (backpacking or hunting, for example), and get the mental/emotional benefits from working out a bit and being happy. I find the above workout is efficient -- it takes less than an hour. It is also something I can actually do a few times a week. If you want to be a super body builder then maybe something more elaborate is in order but for me it is hard to beat the combination of two parts cardio plus one part strength plus one part core, in my opinion.