By the time I've been to the gym on a Sunday afternoon, I'm shot. Saturdays are pretty hectic and then of course Sunday mornings are busy too, so when the workout is done I'm ready for 36 hours off until I get back into my office on Tuesday morning.
My wife, on the other hand, likes to spend most of Sunday afternoon working her way through every section of the paper and then passing interesting items over for me to read in my semi-comotose state.
In all honesty I want to read squat by that time, but now and again I give something she hands off to me more than a passing glance.
That was the case yesterday when I was given a piece with exercise tips by one David Barton. He suggested that you should do cardio in the morning because you burn more fat then (I'll spare you the scientific details). But the thing that caught my eye was that you burn the maximum calories by doing cardio intervals - running intensely for three minutes, walking for two and then repeating.
I tried that this morning at the gym. I ran at 8mph for three minutes and then walked at 4mph and kept repeating it -and man did I sweat! At that pace I still covered 6.4 miles in an hour and I guess time will tell if it was more effective than straightforward running at a steady pace.
The immediate benefit was that shaking up my routine made it far less boring and therefore more tolerable. I must confess being on a treadmill for an hour a day is not all that fascinating whatever you're listening to or watching at the time.
I enjoyed it and will definitely do it again tomorrow.
