We have officially reached the time of year where I embrace the treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining about temperatures ranging from the 20s-40s when that’s balmy for many of you (and I am fondly remembering all those 70 degree runs I had in November and December). What I do find is that it becomes necessary for me to get my body warmed up on the treadmill before I do any sort of lifting. When I’m bundled up and feeling cold, it helps me to work up a little bit of heat and sweat before I do strength work.

So this week I have been doing a lot of short treadmill interval workouts before my strength work and I feel like my workouts are about a billion times better for it! Also, intervals are my favorite way to pack a mega punch in a short amount of time.

Here’s the weekly workout recap. Heavy on strength and yoga.

Monday

REST

Tuesday

4 miles of treadmill intervals + strength

Treadmill Intervals

10 minutes warm up
5 minutes hill intervals at 45 seconds on/15 seconds rest, starting at 6% and working up to a 10% incline
5 minutes of hill intervals at 20 seconds on/10 seconds rest, working between 8% and 10%
5 minutes sprint intervals at 45 seconds on/15 seconds rest, working down to about a 7 min mile pace
5 minutes sprint intervals at 20 second on/10 seconds rest, working down to 6 min mile pace

This is a recipe for sweaty.

Upper Body Strength

10×3:

Bench Press (70#)
Cable Machine Standing Rows
Lat Pulldowns
Straight Bar Bicep Curls (30#)
Cable Machine Tricep Press Downs

Wednesday

1 mile warm up on treadmill + Strength/CrossFit-ish workout + hot yoga

I did 5 rounds and this workout took me a little under 25 minutes to complete.

Thursday

Hot yoga

Friday

2 mile treadmill run + strength + Ashtanga

Treadmill

5 minutes warm up
5 minutes hill intervals at 45 on/15 off at 10% incline
7 minutes sprint intervals at 45 on/15 off at sub-7 pace

Strength

3 rounds:

15 barbell deadlifts (95#)
15 dumbbell chest flies (20#)
15 weighted step ups (20# dumbbell each arm, 20′ step)
15 ring rows
15 bicep curls (15#)
15 tricep dips

Saturday

Hot yoga

Sunday

Ashtanga yoga

What’s your favorite way to warm up?

What’s your favorite way to make a treadmill run interesting and challenging?

What’s your current workout focus?