Baby Steps, Ten Minutes of Them On an Elliptical

Since I’m no stranger to starting fitness routines over again it’s always the constant reminder of how far I’ve fallen when I start back up a fitness routine again.  Of course with each passing year the threshold drops further and further on the fitness levels at the beginning of each phase.  On this particular startup phase I started up this week with elliptical cardio.  Yes, I’d like to get back to running long distances again, but I’m still very early in the building phase and I know I have lots of body strength symmetry issues I want to work through.   It was shocking and disappointing when after ten minutes of a thirty minute “easy” elliptical workout that I could feel the burn in my quads and calves.  Because of some stuff around the house I have to get done I couldn’t risk having rigor mortis for the rest of the day so at that point I switched off to do an additional ten minutes of medium-speed walking on the treadmill.  My heart rate which was in the high-160s to low-170s during the “easy” elliptical routine was now in the 110-115 range.  That’s a perfect sustainable pace.

I’m sure I’ll be able to work up to much greater cardio levels over time.  I’ll have a similar problem with my strength training as that kicks in.  But it’s better to do the build up as baby steps rather a huge burst and then a crash and burn.  It’s easy enough to lose focus with a sustainable pace much less with a crazy fast one.