Since the Olympics have begun, I’ve been marveling at the athletes bodies. Have you seen the abs on Jessica Ennis!?
Now. I have no idea how to get abs like that. Obviously the woman works out hours a day and is in the kind of shape that none of us could every hope to be. However, while I can’t counsel anyone about how to get rock hard abs, I can tell you that the first step is to lose your excess weight.
My favourite gym teacher once told me that the ideal way to lose weight is by high quantity and low intensity workouts. The argument here is that, if you are doing high intensity activities (ie, sprinting) you will end up burning less calories than low intensity activities (ie, jogging), simply because your body is able to withstand low intensity activities for a longer period of time.
That being said, my favourite method of working out is jogging/running. When I first started running, I had no idea what to do… Treadmill, neighbourhood, park? Pants, shorts? Music, no music? Finally I found found the solution:
Just stop thinking and run.
A program (challenge?) that’s been circling around the web for awhile now is the C25K (couch to 5km) wherein a person can go, quite easily, from being unable to run for longer than a minute, to running a 5km after 9 weeks. Check out the treadmill version and the outdoorsy version.
The C25K site also has podcasts/apps that you can download as well as a forum to help you meet other people who are just starting to run.
Photos: Jessica Ennis
