CARDIO CIRCUIT TRAINING CHALLENGE

Spice up your cardio workout with a simple circuit routine that doubles as a fitness event. Yep,
cardio sessions that build heart health AND feature competition and novelty to stoke your intensity-pushing and motivation-driving adrenaline.

First, decide how many components you want for your circuit challenge, and then, select the machines. The common choices include treadmills, stationary bikes, rowing machines, hand bikes, elipticals, and stair steppers/stair mills. If you are new to doing this sort of activity, you may want to begin by doing a ‘biathlon’ using the two cardio machines with which you are most familiar. (Add more/different machines to your repertoire to be able to use them for your next circuit challenge AND grow your Iron Footprint!)

Second, set your measurement metrics. Decide between setting the duration of time you will spend on each piece of equipment—and track the distance you cover, OR the distance you will cover—and track the time it takes to cover the distance).

For example, you could spend 10 minutes each on the treadmill and stationary bike and track the distance you cover. Or, you could time yourself for how long it takes you to walk/run 2 miles on the treadmill and then cycle 5 miles.

Keep track of your measurements – as FitBESTS – so you can track your improvement over time.

Keep in mind you can do ‘traditional’ events such as a timed 1-mile run, or ‘nontraditional’ events such as walking backwards for distance at a 20-degree incline. You can also include non-machine cardio exercises such as jumping rope and step-ups.

As your cardio capacity improves (along with your machine repertoire), you can add more components to keep creating unique challenges.

The way I see it, your gym membership allows you to use ALL the equipment, so make the most of your monthly credit card ding – here’s to biathlons, triathlons, quad-athlons, octathlons, heptathlons, decathlons…and any other ‘ons’ you can conjure!

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