Incline Walking

Walking tends to get a bad rap as cardio in the fitness world. Walking has so many benefits, especially when you're walking on an incline.

When walking on an incline, your core has to stay tight so you don't fall over and your hamstrings and glutes are super activated to help push up the incline. This is my second favorite low intensity exercise next to climbing on the stair master.

If you have access to a treadmill with an incline feature get on and go at about a 10+ incline for around 30-40 minutes at a brisk walking pace and don't hold on. The easiest thing to do is to hold on to the rails while you're walking and that makes it so much easier, but don't do it! Get those arms moving and walk!

I also decided to throw in some stretching and ab work. I am a huge fan of weighted ab exercises. I don't like to do like 50 crunches, but I like to do heavy crunches. My gym has a crunch machine you can add weight to and it has a seat that turns so you can work your obliques as well. I did 3 sets of 15 at 145lbs on normal crunches (every crunch machine I've been on varies in weight I use) and then 3 sets of 15 each oblique at 65 lbs. I don't go as heavy on my obliques because I am wide enough as it is, and the heavier you go working any muscle group the muscle will grow. That's a mistake a lot of people make when training obliques. They do a lot of weighted movements that just widen your midsection because you're obliques are like any other muscle. When you train them heavy they will grow.

Tomorrow is back day. I am very very excited!