Walking Strong

This workout is designed for the treadmill, but also shows a modifier (Jill) doing the workout on the floor. She varies her knee height on the marches when the incline on the treadmill is changed, and does the squats, lunges, and upper body work - but I don't think I'd enjoy the workout as much without the treadmill.

Tracey and Bobbi (her sister) are the two doing the workout on the treadmills. There is light chatter during the entire routine, with joking between Tracey and Bobbi - which I enjoy. On the bottom of the screen is the speed and incline they are each using. Tracey is doing the more advanced speed and incline, with Bobbi moving a bit slower at lower inclines.

I had fun with this workout, as usual - but it kicked my butt, too! I was almost able to keep up with Bobbi, but still have work to do before I can follow her for the entire routine. There are 11 five minute intervals for this workout, and that really helps to move things along, as there is a lot of variety.

The intervals breakdown like this:

1. Warm Up

2. Upper body - front lateral raises, side lateral raises

3. Lower Body - Walking lunges, Walking lunges with a kickback on the rear leg, side crossovers into a squat

4. Hill Climb - 45 second hill climbs with 15 second recovery periods

5. Upper body - Bicep curls, hammer curls, overhead triceps extension OR triceps kickbacks

6. Hill Climb - same as above

7. Lower Body - same as above

8. Hill Climb - same as above

9. Upper body - upright rows, back rows, bent arm fly

10. Hill climb - same as above

11. Cool down - stretch

The hill climb format stays the same for each hill interval, but the recovery periods change a bit as you progress. Instead of lowering both the speed and the incline for recovery, after about the halfway point you only lower the speed. For lower body, Tracey slows to 1.5 mph and Bobbi to 1.0 mph. The side crossovers are done with you facing perpendicular to the console of the treadmill, and you cross one foot over the other, and go into a squat when you put your foot back down. I did well once I got the rhythm, but whenever we changed sides, it was really weird and took a bit to get the rhythm back for the other side. That's always the case with this part of the workout for me, but at least I didn't think I was going to fall off this time!