The other day I was talking to a good friend who was telling me that he swims a mile 3 to 4 times a week. My first question for him was, “Do you just swim it straight without stopping?” His response was, “Yes, it takes about 40 minutes.” My next questions was, “Why do you swim?” He said, “Because I can’t run anymore and to try to maintain some upper body strength.”

As we continued to talk, I pointed out that when you are exercising at a pace that you can maintain for more than a few minutes, all that exercise or workout is doing for you is helping you maintain your current fitness level.

When I workout it is not to maintain. I workout to become stronger, leaner and faster. I want results! I made a few suggestions to my friend to break his mile up into different interval lengths and do it at different intensity levels. Now his mile swim will be helping him see improvements!

Anything you do can be broken down into intervals and the intensity level can be adjusted. Remember, to see results you don’t always have to do more, you just need to pick up the pace and make sure there is some intensity and overload in all you do.

Learn to love the burn!

Spence