{"id":333,"date":"2008-11-07T21:39:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=333"},"modified":"2015-02-14T17:35:35","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T22:35:35","slug":"if-you-can-talk-while-youre-doing-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/if-you-can-talk-while-youre-doing-that\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Can Talk While You’re Doing That…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a cardio day for me.\u00a0 I hit the elliptical for a 40-minute, steady-state, moderately high intensity aerobic workout, then\u00a0mopped off and\u00a0climbed on\u00a0the treadmill\u00a0for a slow, cool down walk.\u00a0 As I paced,\u00a0a couple of gals on the adjacent treadclimbers caught my eye…or my ear, actually.\u00a0 They were\u00a0in the middle of\u00a0an animated conversation…without\u00a0betraying the\u00a0slightest\u00a0hint of exertion…no stopping midsentence to\u00a0grab a breath, no huffing, not a bead of sweat\u00a0between ’em.\u00a0 It was pretty obvious that – in spite of the fact that their legs were moving – there was little to no resistance to the motion.<\/p>\n

They were burning more oxygen by yakking than working!<\/p>\n

This made me think back to an incident from my old training daze.\u00a0 I was doing\u00a0an ab\u00a0exercise assigned by\u00a0the\u00a0Trainer Guy (Jerry): knee raises on the Roman Chair<\/a>.\u00a0 To do them, I had to face the row of machines against the wall.\u00a0 Just so happened that someone I knew was\u00a0occupying the leg extension machine\u00a0right across from me, so we\u00a0conversed a bit\u00a0while I was working.<\/p>\n

Jerry strolled in right at that moment\u00a0– then stopped\u00a0dead,\u00a0a couple feet away from me.\u00a0 He just stood there…watching, with\u00a0“that look” on his face, which meant he was thinking of something evil.\u00a0 Then – without saying a word – he strode\u00a0over to\u00a0the dumbbell rack, selected a 15 pounder and set it between my feet to increase the load. Then he flashed\u00a0his\u00a0trademark West Virginia Country Boy\u00a0smirk and quipped: “If you can talk while you’re doing that, you’re not working hard enough!”<\/p>\n

Bastard.<\/p>\n

But he wuz right, of course.\u00a0 One of the key things missing from so many workouts is intensity<\/strong>.\u00a0 You can’t make progress if you’re only going through the motions…you have to\u00a0push the limits of what you can do.\u00a0 If you just do the same thing(s) everytime you walk into the gym, your body will adapt…and that’s that.\u00a0 You need to raise the bar – literally, as well as figuratively.<\/p>\n

Now – in the early stages of a workout program – I’m all for making the actual work as easy as possible.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because it takes time for habits to become established, and if those early workouts are too grueling and joyless, then it’s easy to start making excuses to avoid them.\u00a0 Before you know it, you’re back to Square One.<\/p>\n

But –\u00a0once the habit is established\u00a0– it’s time to start turning up the heat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Talking is a distraction: you can’t\u00a0put in a\u00a0good, focused effort\u00a0AND\u00a0maintain a steady, uninterrupted stream of conversation at the\u00a0same time.\u00a0 I’m all for training with a friend or partner, but save the conversation for warm-ups\/cool downs and rest periods.\u00a0 Your body will thank you for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a cardio day for me.\u00a0 I hit the elliptical for a 40-minute, steady-state, moderately high intensity aerobic workout, then\u00a0mopped off and\u00a0climbed on\u00a0the treadmill\u00a0for a slow, cool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,28],"tags":[317,610,615,1854,1546,1803,1810],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8573,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/8573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}