Aerobic Fitness

Having discussed food and fitness in the previous two blogs, let's move on to discussing fitness

Two “cardio” sessions per week (separated by a couple of days) should maintain moderate fitness. To improve fitness, you require aerobic exercise on three or four days per week, including basketball. Five should be the absolute maximum for cardiovascular exercise. Our bodies need rest time to build muscle and for joints to recover.
1. Run for at least a mile at high pace. Parents should go out with younger members and pace them. They should be breathing very heavily and perspiring freely at the end of the run. Please remember to warm up properly and to ensure that you are all wearing appropriate shoes for road running.

2. Skipping is excellent exercise. It can take place in a very small space and doesn’t require parental participation. Ideal if you have to self-isolate. It also tones the “jumping” muscles and improves timing and co-ordination. Skipping can be varied from slow “jump, pause, jump”, to a jump every turn of the rope, to running or hopping with the rope or the boxer’s usual finish: two turns of the rope for each jump. You should skip for 7 or 8 minutes with no rest - this is roughly the same time it will take to run a mile - or start with four periods of three minutes with one minute’s rest between each period.

3. Karl handed out to most under-16s a HIIT programme (High Intensity Interval Training). We’ll be publishing that as we progress through the spring.