Hi Friend!
'Tis the season for long walks on the beach, harbor, trails and in your neighborhood!
I love all the all seasons, at least that's what I tell myself since I choose to live in New England, and I sure appreciate these long days and warm weather. How about you?
One of my family's favorite things to do is long walks.
We've got the 50min walk from our home to Malibu Beach in Dorchester and back, where we touch the 2 poles (Dot Yacht Club & the Trellace).
We've got the 90min+ JFK Harbor walk in which we walk from our home to Carson Beach, south along the harbor walk towards JFK, hang out a bit where we got married at Father's Rest and pick up shells at Max & Leo beach. Then we continue around the library and UMass, stopping at the Sani-Can because coincidentally Vivi always has to go right around that part, and then keep making our way towards Malibu Beach and back home, with the occasional stop at the blue playground. That's a favorite. We bring a snack and drinks for this one.
Then our other big favorite is a picnic walk from our home to Castle Island and back. This one's a 3-4 hour walk with plenty of stops at playgrounds and bathrooms. We roll down the hill at Castle Island and talk with the fisherman. Sometimes we get ice cream at Sullivan's and sometimes we don't. We always look for Walter and his friends Kite Boarding, but we haven't caught them yet.
I love these walks and they're one of my favorite things about living in Dorchester.
This weekend we did (2) JFK walks (4 hours of cardio minutes total) and as you know if you were in the area this weekend, the weather was perfect and they were great days to be outside. The walks reminded me of the yin & yang of cardio minutes.
Yin & Yang Yin and Yang are opposites and the opposites in this example are High Intensity Interval Training and Sprints and Low Intensity Cardio and Walks.
Yin = HIIT and Sprints You probably know I'm a fan of HIIT training and sprints because I built a business around it, way before it hit mainstream and who wouldn't be.
Benefits of HIIT and Sprints - time efficient
- space efficient
- minimal equipment
- yields fast body changes
- fun
- interesting
- intense
- challenging
- use carbs / muscle glycogen for fuel
- burns more stored body fat at rest
- metabolically and calorically expensive
- helps to promote muscle mass
- energizing
- sleep better
- increased brain performance
- can help you get faster
- most team, field and court sports and most gym classes, check this box
Cons of HIIT and Sprints - requires more time to recover
- could lead to injury risk if not done properly
- could lead to accumulated fatigue and decreased performance if not programmed thoughtfully
- can make you hungrier
- can make you more tired
- can make you too high
- can delay sleep if done too late in the evening
- can make your body sore, stiff & tight
- requires rolling, stretching, massage, hydrotherapy, corrective exercises to accelerate recovery
- can't do it everyday long term and for most people can't do it every day short term
Yang = Low Intensity Cardio and Walking You also may know if you've read me for a while and/or have worked with me that I give my clients cardio minute goals. The majority of the time I give these goals I tell them to just walk. I don't care what you do so long as you hit your cardio goal and the easiest way to do it is to walk.
You see walking is both for out of shape and in shape people. For the out of shape people its a non-intimidating starting point that you can track time or distance with to track progress. The same is true for in shape people, however the benefit here is recovery. Recovery from life stress, travel, sitting too much and/or high intensity training.
When you're sore, tired, stressed, have a high resting heart rate and don't feel good, or even if you do feel good, walking is gentle and easy. Plus there are innumerable benefits. If you walk in the woods, aka Forest Bathing, you breathe all that fresh air and get away from the noise, concrete, cars and business from life. The same can be said if you walk somewhere beautiful like we do with the Harbor Walks. You breathe the salt air, hear the seagulls and tide crashing against the rocks. Look out at the islands and see the joy from all the people enjoying the day.
Another benefit is the fat burning quality. At rest and during low intensity activity your main source of fuel is stored body fat (and whatever you ate recently). If you did high intensity workouts yesterday, then your body is probably still recovering, which means your resting metabolism is still at a higher rate than if you hadn't done high intensity work. If you add more activity to this higher resting metabolism in the form of low intensity walking, you'll compound the body fat / calorie burning, while allowing your fatigued muscles to recover.
Body builders do fast, incline walking, when they're peaking for a show because it burns body fat and preserves lean muscle. So long walks can help you get lean and show off your muscles better that you worked hard on in the gym.
Benefits of Walking - Most everyone can do it
- Easy on the body
- You get cardio minutes for it
- Helps to preserve lean muscle mass
- Uses stored body fat as main source of fuel vs. muscle glycogen
- Decreases body fat to help show off your muscles better
- Helps you to recover faster from life stress, travel, sitting, HIIT training and soreness
- Pleasure feelings
- Inspiring
- Time to self and/or time with others
- Don't really sweat or sweat very little.
- Need only comfortable shoes.
- Can do it most anywhere
- Can do it with most anybody
- Great for romance, painting pictures, talking business, brain storming, catching up
- Can be done for short time 5min or long time as in multiple hours
- Most walks up to an hour don't really make you hungry and even if you do super long walks, it doesn't make you ferociously hungry like strength training, HIIT and sprints could.
- No extensive warm up necessary
Cons of Walking - Feet, calves, shins, quads, hips, hamstrings, IT-Band, Adductors, lats can get tight, so you need to stretch during and after
- need sunscreen, bug & tick spray and protective gear for the different elements, seasons and terrain
- may be mentally harder to do in the darker, colder, wet and snowier days of the year
Summer Training So as you enjoy your summer months and make more time for exercise consider complimenting your strength training with both High Intensity Interval Training and Sprints with Low Intensity Cardio like walking.
Burn & Earn,
Coach Mike
p.s. if you or someone you know is looking to piggy back on the summer season by dedicating more time to your self-care to get yourself feeling better for fall, here are some ways I may be able to help.
1. Group Personal Training. If you want a coach, a team, a place to go and most importantly a plan to follow, then this is for you. You'll get accountability, support and progress tracking while you learn new skills and gain confidence in your body and athleticism. The 1st 2 weeks of every phase are guest weeks. To learn more, reply with subject line "guest" and let me know or sign up here.
2. Teacher Appreciation! I sure am grateful for teachers and even more so now that I'm a parent. If you know a teacher who's looking to get in shape this summer to recover from the school year and peak for back to school, send them this link and/or reply with subject line, "teacher appreciation" and let me know how I can help. They'll feel the love and maybe even get into their best shape.
3. Program Design. Some people want to train on their own, but they want a program to follow, that's not off the shelf like P90X or Insanity or from Shape magazine. They want CUSTOM and INDIVIDUALIZED. If you're looking for a supplemental program to what you're already doing, a C3 Program might be right for you. If you're looking for the full sha-bang: strength, cardio, flexibility, nutrition, recovery, warm up, schedule, ... I do that too. It's a premium service, so if you like premium things and want programming tailored to you, reply with "program design".
4. Private Training. Must be the season as I've already trained 2 high school kids and given them a 2-day routine (workout A&B) to be done 3x/wk with the intent to build towards a 3-day routine (Workout A, B & C) for July and August and next summer to build up to a 4-day routine adding a workout D as their training age and knowledge base expand.
Sometimes life gets so full and busy that the only way you're going to work on your self-care is if you have an appointment and someone is there waiting for you. If you want to outsource the thinking to a coach who cares, have a custom program to follow and weekly appointments, reply with "private training".
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