Rapid Fat Loss Cardio

This Workout Muse cardio program calls for 3 30-minute sessions per week ... not so bad, right? Heh.

Here's what you'll be doing for Weeks 1-4:

Workout A: 30 sec. RPE 8-9 (roughly 86-90% MHR), 90 sec. RPE 3-5 (roughly 65-75% MHR) 10x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

Workout B: 1 min RPE 8-9, 3 min. RPE 3-5 5x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

Alternate the two workouts so that week 1 you do Workout A twice, then start in with Workout B the following week, and so forth.

Weeks 5-8 ramp it up a bit by shortening the work to recovery ratio:

Workout A: 30 sec. RPE 8-9 (roughly 86-90% MHR), 60 sec. RPE 3-5 (roughly 65-75% MHR) 13x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

Workout B: 1 min RPE 8-9, 2 min. RPE 3-5 7x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

Okay, I lied. Workout A is only 29 and a half minutes, while Workout B is 31 minutes. Again, alternate the two ... and if you've got a thing about the number 13 it probably won't kill you to do a fourteenth round on your Workout A days.

Weeks 9-12 are where things start to get interesting. Now your work-recovery ratio is down to 1:1, meaning it's not long enough for true recovery, which toward the end of the workout may affect how hard you're able to work during the periods of high intensity. The good news is, you should see improvements over the course of the four weeks, assuming you allow yourself a minimum of 48 hours between sessions.

Workout A: 30 sec. RPE 8-9 (roughly 86-90% MHR), 30 sec. RPE 3-5 (roughly 65-75% MHR) 20x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

Workout B: 1 min RPE 8-9, 1 min. RPE 3-5 10x, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown

And now for the grand finale! During weeks 13-16 you'll be doing tabata intervals during Workout A and 8-second sprints during workout B. Here's the plan:

Workout A: 20 sec. RPE 8-9 (roughly 86-90% MHR), 10 sec. RPE 3-5 (roughly 65-75% MHR) 8x, followed by 1 minute active recovery at RPE 3-5. Repeat 4x for a total of 20 minutes, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown for a total of 30 minutes.

Workout B: 8 sec. RPE 8-9, 12 sec. RPE 3-5 12x, followed by 1 minute active recovery at RPE 3-5. Repeat 5x for a total of 20 minutes, plus a five minute warmup and cooldown for a total of 30 minutes.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Yeah, right.

If you don't want to be a slave to the clock, Workout Muse has some mp3 tracks you can download that'll tell you when to start and stop. iTunes sells one that's formatted like Phase 4 Workout A, and Workout Muse will send you a freebie that's formatted like Phase 1 Workout A. They're useful but not critical, especially if you're not new to this kind of training, and from the little I've seen I think they're overpriced for what you get.

As for what activities you should be doing, pretty much anything goes as long as you're working at the appropriate intensity levels. If you're not a runner and don't have access to cardio equipment you could do something like plyo jacks or air jacks for your intensity bursts, followed by regular jacks or low jacks for your recovery. That would be one round. Round two could be something like burpees/mountain climbers, round three could be power step-ups/tall box climbs ... and so forth. Just be sure to include a lot of variety; otherwise you could run into problems with repetitive stress, not to mention boredom.