Monday's.........ugh! Well, I guess they are not so bad. I thought since I like to do legs so well, I would hit them on the hardest day of the week.

I warmed up doing some leg extensions then went straight into walking lunges. I did 5 sets of 20 steps increasing in weight each set. I ended with 45# db's in my hands. I finished with 5 sets of leg press and 4 more sets of leg extensions alternating with lying leg curls.

I usually do cardio on one of the machines following my weight workout. My cardio is usually steady state training--meaning, I set the machine for 30 minutes and stay at the same pace the whole time. Today, I got a wild hair and did HIIT......High Intensity Interval Training. I was walking on the treadmill and this girl next to me asked if I wanted to do it with her. Of course, I took the challenge, not knowing what to expect.

Actually, I needed the change. I realize that I need to get after a different type of training for a while to burn some more fat. The reason that High Intensity Interval Training works better for fat loss is this: When you do a cardio session at the same pace the whole time, your body goes into what is called steady state. This means that your body has adjusted itself to the speed you are going and tries hard to conserve energy (calories). You will be able to avoid this and burn more calories and FAT by doing the interval training.

The easiest way to do HIIT is to start off at a good pace for 5 minutes. Then take up the intensity on the machine and go as hard and as fast as you possibly can for a 30 seconds and then bring it back down for a minute or two — however long it takes for you to recover enough to do it again. ANY cardio machine will work — I did the treadmill today and will probably do the elliptical trainer on Thursday.

If you are not up to killing yourself the first time out, you could simply keep changing your speed and intensity level every two minutes or so — go up and down — challenge yourself. This will "trick" your body into burning more calories since it does not achieve steady state.

HIIT it hard bloggers!!