You've made a personal commitment to improving your wellness. So you reserve time out of a busy schedule to get in your regular workouts.  You're getting up early while the kids are still asleep, squeezing in a naptime workout, or setting the kids up at the childcare facility at the gym. You're focused, but you're just not seeing the results. What gives? There is nothing more frustrating than exercising, but not achieving the positive outcome you expected.  In this issue, I'll start a series that looks at the reasons why you might not be getting results and offer suggestions to jump start your progress.

Let's start with your cardio workout. There are four components to cardiovascular fitness:

Mode - what kinds of activities
Intensity - how hard
Duraction - how long
Frequency - how often

If you're not seeing results, chances are you need to make a modification in one or more of these components.

Mode

Do you have a favorite cardiovascular exercise?  Great examples include walking, running, cycling, swimming, elliptical, stair climbing, in-line skating and cross country skiing.  When we talk exerise mode, a good rule of thumb is to limit any one activity to 75% of your workouts. For example, if you exercise four times a week, you'd want to limit exercise in any one mode to three days.  For moms, this can be a tough one. A lot of moms do an outstanding job of putting the kids in the stroller and walking the neighborhood on a regular basis.  This is great, but your body needs the challenge and variation of other activties.

The most obvious way to vary mode is to mix up your workout week with varying forms of cardio activities.  One of my favorite ways to vary mode is to combine multiple activities in a single workout. If you're at the gym, pick two or three different pieces of equipment - my favorite combo is rowing machine, elliptical, treadmill.  Then, just split up your workout. The time spent on each will be a function of your total duration and intensity. It's fun, plus it challenges your body to adapt to the varying physical demands of each piece of equipment.  This type of combo workout can also be easily accomplished at home or outside.


Intensity

Let me tell you about a study by a leading research institute. The study examined a group of women over a six-month period. All of the women walked three miles, five times a week, but the women were divided into three groups based on intensity level.  The Strollers walked 20 minute miles or 3 miles per hour. The Brisk Walkers walked 15 minute miles or 4 miles per hour. The Aerobic Walkers walked 12 minute miles or 5 miles per hour. At the end of six months, the Aerobic Walkers had burned 53% more calories than the Strollers because of intensity and dropped two dress sizes. The Brisk Walkers dropped one dress size.  And the Strollers, while they received the health benefits of cardiovascular exercise, saw no change. The results are an excellent illustration of how the intensity component can impact your results.

The obvious question for you is, "Are you a Stroller?" Now don't be thinking that you have to exasperate yourself to get in a good workout. An outstanding way to monitor your intensity and maximize your workout is to utilize a heart rate monitor.  It's a great tool to keep your workouts focused and customized to your fitness levels and goals.


Duration

How long do you exercise? When we talk about exercise duration, the focus is minutes at your target heart rate. So, duration is highly connected to intensity.  Duration should vary based upon your fitness level and could vary from 10-30 minutes for a low fitness level, to 15-45 minutes for an average fitness level, to 30-60 minutes for a high fitness level.  Be sure to add on five minutes for warm up before you start and five minutes for cool down at the end.  Are you exercising at the correct duration and intensity for your fitness level? It can be fun and easy to jump on the elliptical machine at the gym for an hour, talk to a few friends, and watch tv all at the same time. But, you may want to consider reducing the duration and increasing the intensity level to maximize your workout.


Frequency

This is a pretty simple one, how many days a week do you exercise? Maybe you should consider adding an additional workout to your week?  This is a great opportunity to experiment with a different mode of exercise - get out for a bike ride in your neighborhood or swim laps a at local community pool.


Think through your existing cardiovascular exercise routine.  Are there ways that you could modify mode, intensity, duration or frequency to maximize your results? Ok, so we've taken a close look at how you're structuring your cardio workouts, but are you also incorporating a strength training element? If not, this could be a significant factor in your lack of results. In the next issue, we'll take a look at this essential element of fitness results.

Here's to outstanding wellness, Samantha.

Mom to Reese (6) and Laine (3), Samantha enjoys triathlon training, hiking, and healthy cooking, and she is the founder of Optimom Fitness.