Weeks 5 & 6
PreviewExercise, Level 4, Weeks 5 & 6
Goals
- Increase Cardio Routine to 55 Minutes
- Change, Increase Stretches
A Final Push for Cardiovascular Endurance & Flexibility
Welcome back to Pain Free Lifestyle.
For the next 2 weeks, we are going to focus on increasing our cardiovascular endurance and also increasing our flexibility by changing around or stretches.
Play Exercise & Stretching Demonstrations
Increasing Your Cardio
You have been doing 50 minutes of cardio for the last 4 weeks, 2 to 3 times per week.
At this point you are ready to increase the duration by another 5 minutes, to 55 minutes total.
As usual, take your time. Please make sure that you are comfortable with the 50 minute duration before moving onto 55 minutes per cardio-vascular workout.
If you hurt, or are in pain, after the workout, then you are either doing the exercise wrong, or doing the wrong exercise.
If you are swimming and your neck and shoulders hurt, then I would switch to the elliptical machine. If you are doing the stairmaster or elliptical machine and your knees hurt, then switch to the stationary, recumbent bike.
If you are doing yoga and your wrists hurt and you have trouble getting up off the ground, then switch to Tai Chi or Qigong.
There are always alternatives.
Flexibility Training
The next component of physical fitness, might be the most important — Flexibility.
Flexibility will allow you to do most of these exercises. And flexibility can prevent your knees from aching by keeping the muscles supple and balanced.
It takes time to become flexible. It takes time to build up to touching your toes, let alone twisting yourself into a pretzel like what you see in yoga. It is possible to build up to being more flexible. But it might not ever be necessary to be able to twist into a pretzel.
Over the course of this program you’ve become more flexible by doing more stretches that require more flexibility.
This new level of stretches are mostly yoga postures and poses. If you have questions about the form, you can look each move up on the internet. If you can master these poses, you will be able to enter into most intermediate level yoga classes and be comfortable and hold your own.
It doesn’t matter if you aren’t able to get to the exact place that the video or picture shows. Take it to the point of where you feel a stretch, and hold it there.
Listen to your body.
And above all, most importantly, do no harm to yourself!
Good luck with the new stretches and the new time length for your endurance.
Have fun.
Have a Pain Free Day.
