In the Media
2006-04-10, The Edmonton Journal
New Year New You: Week 12
Chris Zdeb; staff writer, Edmonton
Bride-to-be loves doing the stairs
This is it. The last week of Bobbi Robbins’s free 12-week-training sessions. Trainer Alexandra Senkow took advantage of the great spring weather and set most of Robbins’s workouts outdoors.
She ran intervals back and forth across the High Level Bridge and did stairs on the staircase by the Royal Glenora Club – all 209 of them – down and up, four times each way.
“The first time doing down and up wasn’t too bad. The second time wasn’t bad. The third time was yuckier. The fourth time, I was, ‘Oh my God!’” Robbins says. “Alex gave me one to two minutes to recover between each set.”
Difficult to monitor outdoor workouts
She’ll never be a runner, her body just isn’t designed for it and she doesn’t like running, Robbins says, but the stairs? She’s already talking to fiancé Todd about them making the staircase into the river valley a part of a regular workout.
“Who needs a gym membership?” You just do that all summer. You would be toned. And there are tons of people that are doing it,” Robbins says.
“It’s definitely something to utilize for free, especially in the summer, when it’s so nice and you want to be outside.”
Stairs are wonderful from a cardio perspective, Senkow says.
“Walking on flat level ground your muscles aren’t moving through their full range of motion so you’re not getting as much toning benefit as if you walk up a flight of stairs,” she says.
“Generally speaking, most people that go for a walk in the river valley walk at an intensity that is light to moderate and the intensity doesn’t vary even if the incline does, so they’re not actually getting an effective workout,” Senkow says.
The problem for some people who regular work out indoors is the siren call of beautiful weather.
On beautiful days it’s really hard for clients to see the value in an indoor workout if they fell like they’re missing out on the weather, Senkow says.
“If you get an effective workout outdoors then you’re setting yourself up for success because you’re not going to feel deprived. You’re not going to feel like, ‘Oh I’m trapped in the gym,’ while everyone else is enjoying the weather. It’s just understanding that enjoying the weather comes in the form of going for a walk in the river valley with stair repeats and not sitting on a patio drinking beer.”
To get the same benefit outdoors as you do working in a gym, you have to be a little more aware of the intensity of your workout.
Wearing a heart rate monitor becomes really important, Senkow says, because on a machine in the studio, even if you’re not wearing a hear rate monitor, you’re setting your workout to a certain level.
“You know you’re going to burn x-amount of calories, you can base the challenge to how fast you’re going. There are a lot of different variables that you can monitor, whereas outdoors you can’t monitor your speed unless you wear a heart rate monitor,” she explains.
With Robbins wearing a heart rate monitor Senkow could measure her recovery between stair intervals to make sure she wasn’t being put at risk for injury by making the intervals too close together.
While this is the end of Robbins’s free training sessions at Defining Eve, the bride-to-be will continue to work out at the studio for another month after signing up for a six-week bridal boot camp.
Starting weight: 199 pounds. Week 12: ??? We’re going to make you wait a week to find out. Bobbi Robbins’s weight, fitness evaluation and her thoughts after 12-weeks of hard work and eating healthy will appear in next Monday’s Body & Health.
Bobbi Robbins won 12 weeks of personal training with Alexandra Senkow, fitness director of Defining Eve personal fitness studio, in The Journal’s New Year, New You contest.
