The best $5 I ever spent

So, for YEARS I was exclusively using the elliptical machine as my cardio. I’d stay on there like a little bunny rabbit praying down my 40 minutes listening to Kanye West or Eminem or whatever. It wasn’t until about 3 years ago that someone clued me into the fact that HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is what really spikes your metabolic burn for up to 48 hours after it’s done. My body had become fully adapted to that steady state 40 minutes of cardio I had been doing since I was 21 and I was pretty

much wasting my time. Great.

Anyway, once I started doing HIIT training – both on elliptical and on the treadmill, the stubborn fat I couldn’t lose literally fell off me. The best part? You can do it in 1/2 the time as steady state. Get in there, bang it out, and go home. Quick and

convenient if you’re in a rush –

which we always are.

HIIT routine on the treadmill, elliptical, etc: 2 minutes steady state (5.5mph on treadmill) 30 second sprint (6.5-7mph) repeat for 20 minutes. You will burn WAY more and get out of there in half the time. THAT’S IT. If you don’t have access to a cardio machine, you can do something similar using your own body weight. 20 jump squats rest 1 minute repeat until you die (or like 10 minutes) 20 pushups rest 1 minute repeat until you die 30 second burpees rest 1-2 minutes repeat (you get the gist) Also:

• 20 split jumps (aka jump lunges)
• 20 tricep dips
• 1 min jumping jacks / 1 min rest

So, this was all fine and good and drastically upped my game, but THEN…. I discovered something that took this HIIT training to the next level. THE JUMP ROPE. Holy shit. A friend gave me a jump rope as a gift and taught me to use it in between weight training sets to keep my heart rate up. The best use of the jump rope is actually not during a normal cardio sesh, but rather in the rest time between free weight (or machine) sets. So, for example, you’d do a chest press and chest fly set but in between sets, bang out 30-45 seconds of jump rope. My body was never the same. Another friend once told me she was embarrassed to jump rope in front of people. Would you rather be mildly embarrassed for a few minutes OR lose a couple lbs without changing anything or adding more gym time? PS:

This is the jump rope I use. It’s $5 at Target.