Far too often I hear people say that they perform cardiovascular exercise simply to lose weight. "I am going for a 30 minute run on the treadmill, ride the bike for 20 minutes and cruise on the cross trainer for an hour" are just a sample of what I hear. Unless those people have plugged themselves into an interesting podcast or audio book for personal growth, my immediate reactions are, "how boring would that be" and "I bet that won't last long". Then unsurprisingly within a very short time frame many of those people stop exercising altogether.
Hence, I would like to place a ban on this aimless form of cardio to ensure that people have a fighting chance of staying motivated to exercise.
The key to staying motivated to enable you to achieve and maintain your goals long-term is to set specific goals during each session. To assist you in this process we have created a wide range of Challenges for different fitness levels. You can access and record your progress via your Vision Virtual Training account on your mobile device. Simply go to your Training Diary, select add item, am or pm, then Vision Challenges.
The various types of Challenges will appear according to your fitness level as determined in your Goals Sessions as outlined below:
Beginner - Fat Burners
- 5km Tri Challenge - 1000m Rower, 1000m Bike and 3000m Treadmill - record the total time.
- 5 minutes of Fun Challenge - 5 mins Rower, 5 mins Cross Trainer, 5 mins Bike, 5 mins Treadmill - record the total time.
- 3km 500 challenge - 500m Rower, 500m Bike, 500m Treadmill, 500m Rower, 500m Bike, 500m Treadmill - record the total time.
Beginner - Energy Burners
- The Cheese Burger Challenge - 282 cals on the Cross Trainer - record your time.
- The Snickers Bar Challenge - 268 cals on the Rower - record your time.
- The Bourbon and Coke Challenge - 265 cals on the Bike - record your time.
- The Glass of Wine Challenge - 89 cals on the Rower - record your time.
- The Schooner of Beer Challenge - 171 cals on the Stepper - record your time.
- The Tim Tam Challenge - 97 cals on the Treadmill - record your time.
The Chocolate Donut Challenge - 260 cals on the Treadmill - record your time.
Intermediate Destination Challenges
- The Sandhill Simulator - 500m on the Treadmill (incline 5), 50 Mountain Climbers - perform 5 sets and record your time.
- The Sydney Tower Challenge - 87 Floors on the Stepper - record your time.
- The Bondi to Bonte Challenge - 3.5km on the Treadmill - record your time.
Intermediate Cardio Blast Challenges
- The 2 minute Temptation Challenge - 2 mins on the Rower, 2 mins on the Stepper, 2 mins on the Bike, 2 mins on the Treadmill, 2 mins on the Cross Trainer - take 30 secs recovery between each exercise and record your individual and total distances
- The Duathlon Multipler - 5 mins on the Bike, 5 mins on the Treadmill - repeat once - take 30 secs recovery between each exercise and record your individual and total distances.
Adavnced Strength Enduro Challenges
- The Ups and Downs Challenge - 1km Run, 20 Burpees - 3 sets - record your time.
- The Rock and Roller - Total 500m Rower, 20 Push Ups - 3 sets - record your time.
- The Body Burner - 1km Rower, 50 Jump Squats - 3 sets - record your time.
- The Butt Burner - 50 cals Stepper, 50 Jump Squats - 3 sets - record your time.
- The Bike / Burpee blitz - 500m Stepper, 20 Burpees - 5 sets - record your time.
- The Barbell Blast - 20 Barbell Squats (50% BW), 20 Barbell Bench Presses (50% BW), 20 Barbell Bent Over Rows (50% BW), 20 Burpees (50% BW) - record your time.
- The Metabolizer - 10 DB Squat Presses (20% bw), 10 Push Ups, 10 Box Step Ups, 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Wide Grip TRX Pull Up, 10 Jump Squats - 3 sets - record your time.
- The Mountain Challenge - 20 D/B Squat Presses (men 7.5kg, women 4kg), 1km Treadmill (increase incline by 1 every 100m) - 3 sets - record your time.
These Challenges also often pop up as the Workout of the Week in your studio. So give them a go. Test yourself, record your performance and then repeat it a week or two later. That way, you can be motivated to exercise which will go a long way to keeping you on track to achieve your weight loss or fitness goals.
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
