Cardio Health
HIIT Conditioning
Two interval days and three easy days a week, for somebody with a base already built.
- Days a week
- 5
- A session
- 53 min
- Sessions in it
- 5
- Split
- Polarised Intervals on Machines (2 Hard Days, 3 Base Days)
How it runs
Nine per cent of the programme is hard and ninety-one per cent is easy, and that ratio is the design rather than an accident.
What you actually train
5 sessions, in order. Every movement links to how to do it.
Day 1: Row - 4 x 4 min Zone 4 - 3-4 words
8 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Leg Swings2 minutes
- Ankle Circles1 minute
- Rowing Machine6 minutes
- Rowing Machine3 rounds of 20 seconds
- Rowing Machine4 rounds of 4 minutes
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Doorway Chest Stretch1 minute
- Thoracic Spine Rotation (Open Book Stretch)2 minutes
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
Day 2: Bike 40 min - Zone 2 - full sentences
6 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Stationary Bike5 minutes
- Stationary Bike40 minutes
- Stationary Bike3 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch2 minutes
Day 3: Air Bike - 6 x 30 s all-out - Zone 5
9 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Leg Swings2 minutes
- Ankle Circles1 minute
- Assault Bike (Air Bike)7 minutes
- Assault Bike (Air Bike)4 rounds of 20 seconds
- Assault Bike (Air Bike)6 rounds of 30 seconds
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Assault Bike (Air Bike)4 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch2 minutes
Day 4: Cross-Trainer 40 min - Zone 2 - easy
5 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Elliptical Trainer5 minutes
- Elliptical Trainer40 minutes
- Elliptical Trainer3 minutes
- 90/90 Hip Stretch2 minutes
- Doorway Chest Stretch1 minute
Day 5: Bike 45 min - Zone 2 - full sentences
6 movements
Circuit — straight through, then rest
- Stationary Bike5 minutes
- Stationary Bike45 minutes
- Stationary Bike3 minutes
- Standing Quad Stretch1 minute
- Standing Hamstring Stretch1 minute
- Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch2 minutes
Why it works
- Nineteen minutes of hard work a week is the entire reason it exists; the other two hundred and five minutes are what make those nineteen possible.
- Do not start it until you have held a hundred and fifty easy aerobic minutes a week for eight weeks — that base is what the other cardio programmes are for.
- Two protocols doing two jobs: four minutes hard with four minutes easy, and thirty seconds all-out with a much longer recovery.
- The all-out work is on an air bike rather than on foot — same stimulus, none of the hamstring load, and no sprints anywhere on the shelf.
- Keep two numbers and no others, so progress is measurable without turning every session into a test.
The easy days are also a measuring instrument: if forty easy minutes does not feel easy, the interval days are being paid for and it is time to take a week down. Aerobic work is half of what the guidelines ask for.
The other half is muscle-strengthening activity on two or more days a week, and this programme does not contain any — run it alongside one of the Build Muscle programmes rather than instead of one.
What to expect
Expect three of the five sessions to be genuinely easy, and expect that to be what makes the other two possible.
Before you start
Five sessions a week on a rower, a bike, an air bike and a cross-trainer: two genuine interval sessions and three easy base days.
The first hard day is four efforts of four minutes at a hard effort with four minutes of easy work between each. The second is six all-out efforts of thirty seconds with three minutes between them.
Everything else in the week is easy, and every session has a warm-up ramp, dynamic drills and rising build-up efforts before anything hard starts. Before you start, please read this one.
Aerobic exercise is among the safest and most useful things most people can do for their health, and it is also the setting in which a heart problem nobody knew about is most likely to announce itself.
Get medical clearance before you begin if any of the following is true of you. Chest pain, pressure or tightness on exertion, including anything that comes on when you hurry, climb stairs or carry shopping and eases when you stop.
Dizziness, light-headedness or fainting, on effort or when you stand up. Known heart disease, a heart-rhythm problem, or a heart attack, stent, bypass, ablation or any cardiac procedure at any point in your life.
Or no regular exercise for a year or more, if you are also over 40, or you smoke, or you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, or a parent or sibling who had heart disease before 55 in men or 65 in women.
Any of those means speak to your GP before you start, and follow what they tell you over anything written here.
This is the hardest programme on this shelf and it contains all-out efforts, which is the single highest-risk thing in this app for a heart nobody has looked at.
Do not begin it until you have been cleared, and do not begin it at all until you have held a hundred and fifty easy aerobic minutes a week for at least eight weeks.
If you are waiting for that appointment, Low-Impact Cardio is the programme to be on.
Also speak to your GP or a physiotherapist first if you are pregnant or within a year of giving birth, if your blood pressure or diabetes is not currently controlled, if you have low bone density or osteoporosis, if you have a lung condition, or if a joint or tendon is flaring.
Stop the session and get medical advice the same day for chest pain, pressure or tightness; pain spreading into the jaw, neck, back or an arm; breathlessness far out of proportion to the effort; dizziness or feeling you might faint; a heartbeat that is unusually fast, slow or irregular; or a cold sweat with any of those.
Call emergency services rather than driving yourself. Nothing here is medical advice.
What you need
- Rowing Machine
- Stationary Bike
- Assault Bike
- Elliptical
- Mat