LD,
It is so difficult to do justice to Cardio Coach with words but let me try.
With Cardio Coach three things will guide you to vary intensity
a. The Level changes and the way Sean announces them - he will give you verbal cues to map out each challenge for you and little pointers about how much you should be pushing or scaling back. Since Sean tests and tweaks his workouts so intensively before he launches them, the intensity coaching is bang on.
b. The music - unlike itread they are not songs - each interval has its own music score. So it you have to climb a tough hill, the music will push up-up-up, when you have to sprint it will soar, when you have to recover it will calm down. The music sets the mood, the pace, and the sense of urgency/calmness. Think of it as the background score of a movie taking you from soothing, action, edge-of-the-seat-thriller and back.
c. The countdowns - They are incredibly motivating to me. When they start off a hill or sprint, I start adjuting my setting. After the 10..9......3..2..1 there is always a dramtic swoosh and I LOVE it when I have upped the settings just in time to coincide with that swoosh. Then the music has changed and is racing or climbing. That feels exhilarating and spurs me. And towards the end of the sprint or hill, I keep pushing in the hope of hearing the countdown. I continue to push hard as the countdown starts: 10,9,9,7.... and I dont let myself touch the controls until I hear the swoosh at the end of the countdown....the music changes to a more relaxed mood and beat and I slow down.
This is not the best way to do a CC workout but let me make you a CC translation table from iTread (as your body is not good at talking to you
). Since I do both I think this may be a reasonable guide. To do CC you need to define four levels for your current fitness.
Level 1: Used to warm up and for recovery
Level 2: Used for Steady State - aerobic pace - working
Level 3: Trek - upper end of your aerobic threshold using a combination of speed and inclne
Level 3: Hill - upper end of your aerobic threshold using mainly incline for intensity
Level 3: Sprint - upper end of your aerobic threshold using speed
Level 4: Hill - anaerobic burst based on incline
Level 4: Sprint - anaerobic burst based on speed
Let us map that to Runner settings in the average iTrain workout:
Level 1: Incline 0%, speed 6.4
Level 2: Incline 0%, speed 6.6 to 6.8
Level 3: Trek - Incline 2%, speed 6.6 to 7.0 (think of it as what Grace calls a small fast hill)
Level 3: Hill - Incline 5%, speed 6.2 to 6.4
Level 3: Sprint - Incline 0%, Speed 7.2 to 7.6
Level 4: Hill - Incline 6%, speed 6.5 to 6.8
Level 4: Sprint - Incline 0% speed 8.0 to 8.5
You may find in a workout that has 4 successive Level 3 sprints with 30 seconds Level 1 recovery in between, that you may need to reduce your settings on the third sprint so that you dont get clearly anaerobic (your body will definitely tell you this whether you are good at listening or not).
The wonderful thing about CC is that next time, you can change the settings around - you can do all Hills of Level 3 by walking at 4.2 up a 12% grade. Similarly use different settings to make it a mix of running and walking and it will still kick your butt. Just plan a map of settings for each level combo in that table, and see how you fare.
~* Vrinda *~
