Amanda Russell: Train Like an Olympian Workout Part Two

By Amanda Russell 08/07/12 at 01:30 PM

If you’ve been watching the Olympics, chances are you are at your peak of inspiration, so why not use this as fuel to kick your own butt into high gear.

Last week I designed part I of my Olympic Workout which was all plyometric and bodyweight strength at it’s best. If you tried it out, chances are you know what an intense workout really is!

Now this week, I wanted to give you part II, but change it up and focus more on speed and cardio intervals. This workout I call the ladder, and I recommend doing it running if you can. BUT, if you aren’t a runner, or are plagued by injuries, you can absolutely do this workout on the elliptical machine or in the pool, just make sure you are really cranking up that intensity on the intervals.

Alright, you ready? Let’s DO IT!

The Concept: To work as hard as you can for every interval (think sprinting, you really want to get breathless by the end of EVERY interval), then do an active recovery for the allotted recovery time. If you are running your active recovery is a jog.

If this is your first time through this workout, you should be intense enough that it should be HARD to get through all the intervals and that’s OK (the more intense the person, the - the idea is to keep coming back to it – watch yourself get faster, fitter, leaner, stronger!

Like all Olympic training workouts, it can be intense, but only YOU will have the power over just how intense it can be – so if nothing is stopping you, pull out the inner athlete in yourself and go after it!

Don’t forget to tell me on Facebook once you’ve completed it – let’s see how many people we can get to do this! Pass it along!

What you need:

Stopwatch or Timer (I recommend Gymboss, so you can set it to beep every 20 seconds)

Anything you need for your form of cardio (running=sneakers, biking= a bike….you get the idea)

And if you want to rock some hot workout clothing while you do it – check out Splits 59 – the hottest, highest quality brand out there! Order now and use my promo code to receive 10% off!

The Workout

5-7 Min Warm-UP
15 seconds ‘ON’ (ON=Hard-Moderate- Hard Effort) + 15 Seconds ‘OFF’ (Off = Recovery)
30 seconds ‘ON’ + 30 Seconds ‘OFF’
45 seconds ‘ON’ + 45 Seconds ‘OFF’
60 seconds ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
75 seconds ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
90 seconds ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
2 minutes ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
90 Seconds ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
75 Seconds ‘ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
60 Seconds ON’ + 60 Seconds ‘OFF’
45 Seconds ‘ON’ + 45 Seconds ‘OFF’
30 Seconds ‘ON’ + 30 Seconds ‘OFF’
15 Seconds ‘ON’ + 15 Seconds ‘OFF’
5-7 min Cool-Down

FINISH LINE!

How do you feel?? Please ‘like’ my page and SHARE your comments on my Facebook, I read them all! I want to see who did this and how it went!

Definition of Exertion Levels:

Hard Moderate (HM): HR: 80%-90% of Max. Pace fast and a bit uncomfortable; breathing forceful. Improve anaerobic capacity and threshold, improved speed

Hard (H): HR: 90%-100% of Maximum Pace, a sprinting effort, unsustainable for long period of time; labored breathing. Builds anaerobic and muscular endurance, increased power.

Recovery: Heart Rate (HR) comes back down. Perceived Exertion: Relaxed, getting your breathing back. Keep legs spinning but take speed and any resistance off the bike

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Love,

Amanda