The four day workout - Finishing it up with cardio

We talked about a good four day workout last week. We covered the various exercises you should do as well as some tips and tricks for each. Now we’re going to finish it up with cardio. Yes, cardio is important for anyone serious about their health. You can eat healthy and lift all the weights you want, but you’re not done until you add some form of cardio.

I’ve covered some cardio options in the past in this article and I’d recommend you go back and read it. It will give you some overall information about the various cardio possibilities. However, for today’s article, let’s go with a bit of everything. Remember, you don’t have to do this at the same session as your weights workout. In fact, you don’t have to do these on the same day. Your weight sessions could be Monday to Thursday while your cardio is Thursday to Sunday. You could also do cardio before or after your weights. It’s all up to you and what you feel comfortable with.

The Exercises

Day 1 - Running. This means jogging on the street, running on a trail or spending time on the treadmill. 5 minute warm up at a slow pace, 30 minute run at a moderate pace and 10 minute cool down at a slow pace or walk.

Day 2 - Biking. Again, can do this on a stationary bike or you can actually go out there and bike. 5 minute warm up at a slow pace, 30 minute ride at a moderate pace and 10 minutes cool down at a slow pace.

Day 3 - Walk. This is slightly different from standard walking. It’s faster and harder. That means you need to find a tough hiking trail or an elliptical machine. Alternatively, you could find a set of stairs and then go up them for a while. Same setup, 5 minute warm up, 30 minutes of exercise and 10 minutes of cool down.

Day 4 - Run or bike but interval style. Interval style means exercise as hard as you can for a short period of time followed by a few minutes of slower exercise and so on. So for example, I usually run at 6.5 mph. On Day 1, I would simply run for the entire 30 minutes at 6.5 mph. On day 4, when I’m doing intervals, I will run for 1 minute at 7mph and then 4 minutes at 6mph. Do that 6 times and you’ve gone the entire 30 minutes. Intervals can be a bit tough at first, so if you’re just starting out, you may want to be careful here. Take it easy and don’t push too hard.

Summary

That’s four days of cardio right there, plenty for a whole week. Now doing this doesn’t mean you can sit on the couch for the rest of the week. You should still be out there, as active as possible. Go hiking for fun, dancing with a special someone, walk up the stairs at work and take a short hike after lunch. These are all things that should be part of your everyday life and have nothing to do with the amount of exercise you perform every week. Still, a structured exercise plan is a good thing to have, so take this four day workout that we’ve laid out in this series of articles, modify it to suit your needs, and then follow it every week.

We’ll finish up this series tomorrow with some tips on how to customize and modify the workout to better match your specific requirements.

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