Body And Fitness Blog

If you suddenly had to get fit in six weeks then it’s going to be a bit tricky, especially if you’ve not been doing much activity recently. I have in the past trained for a half marathon in three weeks, though I was already going out running a couple of times a week so had a bit of basic fitness.

However, if you haven’t been doing any fitness work other than a walk to work or walking the dog, there is no reason why you can’t measurably improve your fitness in just six weeks. You might not be able to get fit enough to run a half marathon in a decent time, but depending on your current fitness level (and weight), you should be able to get fit enough to run a 5k or 10k race (perhaps a race for life event coming up in May).

Week 1 - 2

You don’t want to go nuts in the first couple of weeks, but you do need to get the body used to doing exercise again. As such, you will need to do some running, and some circuit training, as well as some brisk walking. If you currently drive to work and park at the office, find a different place to park that is 15 - 20 minutes walk from work, or if you only live a similar walking distance from your workplace, just walk instead of driving, you’ll be getting some exercise, doing your bit for the environment and saving a few pounds in petrol each month too!

Go for three 15 minute runs, at a pace that is comfortable to talk at, you should be feeling slightly breathless but not gasping for air. Remember to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. In addition, aim to get 6 half hour walks in (or twelve 15 minute walks).

Week 3 - 4

In your third week you should be feeling a bit fitter! For this week, introduce some interval training into the routine which will help to improve your fitness levels significantly. I’ll assume you don’t have a treadmill at home or a gym membership and therefore access to a treadmill. Instead, you’ll have to count your intervals and monitor the leves that you exercise at.

Swap one of your runs from the previous week for an interval training session, and introduce another session for intervals, you should be doing four exercise sessions each week.

Go for 15 minutes of interval training. The first session will be speed intervals. Run for 1 minute at a comfortable pace (your normal jogging pace), then for the next 30 seconds increase this until you are running as fast as you can. Repeat this for ten cycles, you will find that the latter speed intervals are slower than the first, this is normal.

The second interval training session will be a hill interval, so find a small hill, 30 - 50 metres in length that you can run up. Run up the hill then slowly jog down the hill for fifteen minutes. Again, like the speed intervals you will find that your pace slows toward the end of the workout.

Weeks 5 - 6

By week five you should be feeling, and looking different! To make things harder for the next two weeks we’ll simply increase the time that you go running for. So instead of going for 15 minute runs, we’ll increase the time to 20 minutes, for four runs each week. In addition, we’ll throw in some resistance training, just spend one session each week doing the following exercises:

• Push ups
• Squats - just ignore the stuff about the barbell, just do the exercise with your bodyweight
• Planks
• Leg raises
• Sit ups
• Pull ups

Click on the links for an explanation of each exercise.

For these exercises, just try and do a circuit whereby you do each exercise until you can’t do any more repetitions. Have a two minute break after the first circuit, then repeat it twice.

That’s it for a simple six week fitness program that should ease you gently back into a level of fitness that will allow you to start training harder for your goals, whatever they are.

Other useful posts:

• Dymatize Elite Whey Protein Isolate Review
• Training Journal: Monday 9th February 2009
• Bicep And Tricep Workout Friday 1st May 2009
• Full Body Workouts – Are They A Good Idea?
• How Much Protein Should I Eat To Gain Muscle