Diet & Fitness 

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The advanced fitness programme: Week one

Hello and welcome to the first week's advanced fitness assignment. Well done for committing yourself to becoming even fitter over the next eight weeks. Remember that this is a flexible plan for you to incorporate into your life - you can use it as a guideline, picking up advice and taking on the parts you enjoy.

The secret to a great cardio workout is interval training. This means varying your pace. Alternating short, intense bursts of energy with a recovery period at a lower intensity will cause your body to burn more calories. This is a great way to improve your fitness level because it steps up your workout without you having to spend more time in the gym.

Monday
Complete the work out at the gym or work out at home programme. To make it more challenging try holding dumbbells, or a can of baked beans in each hand when doing the squat exercises. When doing the lunges hold a bodybar behind the head and resting on the fleshy part of the shoulders. If you can get hold of some ankle weights then use these when working your inner and outer thighs.

To advance your tummy crunches, place the feet further away from your bottom. To blast that area further, take your legs up to a table top position, hips and knees at right ankles and crunch in this position. To advance even further, take the arms from behind the head and extend them so the upper arms are in line with the ears.

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