With lockdown extended for another 9 weeks it has never been more important to look after your physical health. College students have more free time now than ever. It is a perfect opportunity for you to try to get in great shape for a hopefully covid free summer. In this blog I will address some of my personal favorite sessions that have helped me keep in shape over the last few months. Everyone has a different level of fitness so it would be unfair to start everyone off at the same intensity. I Will go through many levels of different types of sessions with varied intensity.
What Do You Need?
The only equipment needed to do any of these sessions are a mobile phone and a pair of runners which I am sure everyone has. If you have a fitness watch, great, but if not you can download MapMyRunhttps://www.mapmyrun.com onto your phone. This will track your distance covered and the speed at which you are moving.
A casual stroll: If you just want to take a break from the books then walking is perfect, people often come up with complicated methods on how to exercise, keep it simple. The goal should be 10,000 steps every day. This can be tracked using a watch or a smartphone. Put on your favorite podcast or music and walk, soak in the outdoors and the nature around you, as I feel most college students spend far too much time indoors. Take routes which you have never done before, a change of scenery will be good for you. Your mind and body will thank you for it. Take the dog with you too, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
Beginner: The hardest thing to do is start. Once you get over the first session it becomes easier as you will get into a routine. It's also a great way to break up your day and helps you get away from college work. The first session is a four kilometer walk, but you must complete one out of the four kilometers in under 7 minutes.
Make it easier/harder: Reduce the total distance covered to only three kilometer or increase the distance to five kilometers.
Intermediate: Students who fall under this category are into exercise but may not do it regularly enough to reap the benefits of it, if this sounds like you, you have come to the right place. This session is slightly more advanced than the beginner session. You will run a total distance of four kilometers in under 26 minutes which is a kilometer every 6 minutes with a 2 minute break included at the halfway mark.
Make it easier/harder: Extend your break to 4 minutes to give you a longer recovery or if you find it too easy you can shorten your recovery time to only a minute.
Advanced: If you feel like the intermediate session is too easy and you play sports regularly and feel like you are a relatively fit person, I would recommend you to give this session a try. The distance covered is five kilometers. The first two kilometers should be run in under 9 minutes. You then take a 90 second break. The second two kilometers should be run in 10 minutes with a 90 second break at the end. This leaves you with one more kilometer to run which should be run at a pace of 4:25. This whole workout should be completed in under 27 minutes. It will test you to see how hard you can push yourself when you are feeling tired and fatigued.
Make it easier/harder: If you find it too tough you can increase your recovery time as well as decreasing the speed you run the first two kilometers at to 10 minutes. If it is too easy you can increase the pace for the second two kilometers to 9 minutes and also reduce your recovery time to only one minute.
Professional: This session is perfect for you if you play sports at a high level and train multiple times a week and feel like the advanced session wouldn't be enough of a challenge. This will be a real test for you. The total distance covered is five kilometers. You run the first four kilometres in under 17 minutes, once this is done you get a 2 minute break as the first four kilometers will have been tough on the lungs. The last kilometer should be run in under 4 minutes, this is at 100% as it is the last kilometer. This will test your legs as they'll begin to feel heavy and fill up with lactic acid.
Make it easier/harder: To make it easier you can add a minute to the first four kilometers so it takes 18 minutes and 30 seconds and you can increase the time to 4 minutes 15 seconds for the final kilometer. To make this session harder you should only take a one minute break.
It may not seem like it but summer is only around the corner, so if you want to be in great shape you should work your way up through the various levels. You may even surprise yourself with your results!
