Walking/Jogging and the Ellipticals are perfectly fine. Feeling pain in your legs, shinsplints, ache in hips and knees is normal, so stick to light impact cardio when you do it on your off days or 10-15 min after weight sessions. You’ll have to pace yourself as your body changes, high impact cardio such as running and sprinting will become more effective and enjoyable as you lose more non-helpful weight.
You can do HIIT on cycles and ellipticals though. For a beginner as yourself I’d recommend a 10 second 1 minute interval. 10 seconds almost as hard as you can go (speed wise) and 1 minute jogging pace ( conversation pace where you can talk and exercise ). Switch back and forth for 5 minute-10 minutes. Done.
If 10 seconds is not challenging enough try (15-30) seconds hard, 1 minute conversation pace.
- All done on ellipticals and cycles.
So : Stick to cycles/ellipticals,stairmachine,row machine for cardio.
As you feel better initially do 1-2 track/sidewalk walk/jogs a week. Jog as long as you can then walk until you feeel right as rain. Then Jog again as long as you can then walk til you feel right as rain. It gets kind of meditative as the whole time you want to be paying attention to how you feel and your surroundings because when your moving at the pace of slow, there is nothing to do but enjoy breathing and your surroundings. Don’t do more then 1/2 a mile to a mile for at least 1 month.
simple guide to high intensity interval training.
2 speeds
-90% your maximum ability
-50-60% - this is a general figure, this equates to as strong of a pace as you can manage for your ( rest pace vs the 90% )
Timing :
30seconds on 30 seconds off
ON = 90%
OFF = 50% ( will use that as base )
those percentages are your own personal ability to push yourself to your own 90% not to a stopwatch and a 40yard length course okay? your own personal 90%. your own 50%.
Other timings if that is too strenuous you can build up to that.
time variations.
-
15 seconds ON, 30 seconds Off
-
15 seconds ON, 45 seconds Off
-
30 seconds ON, 1 minute Off
Either way sprinting more then 30 seconds will generally lower your total time able to continue intervals.
Generally I may do this for 5 min get water and do it again, getting water every 5 min and resting 1-2 min.
Or I’ll do it 5min, water, 10min, water 15 min, water.
Or I’ll do it 20min intervals,5-10min cool, then water - then repeat for about an hour.
20 min or 60 min or 2 hours. They’ll all help it really comes down to how much time you have, and how many calories you want to quickburn, also energy levels, fatigue, rest you had prior.
You do cardio 3 times a week you’ll notice the difference, you do it 20 times a week you’ll notice the difference. It’s mainly the type of cardio and quality. If you can only do 5 min of Hiit a day that is good enough but within 2-4 weeks make it 10 minutes. Then 15minutes then 20 minutes.
Oh ~ if your experiencing aches and pain in your legs from running jogging. Most commonly shin splints, you want to give your body at least a week to heal, though test runs never hurt.
My personal preference right now is ellipticals and jumpropes.