I am not the type of person who can step onto a piece of cardio equipment at the gym and pedal mindlessly for an hour… Or even half an hour… Or 15 minutes.  If I am not engaged in the workout and frequently pressing buttons to change the speed, level, etc., I become very bored.  Here’s a workout I did yesterday on an Elliptical.  It’s more complicated to explain than it is to actually do, so I created a graph (time on the bottom axis, level going up the side) :

Basically I warmed up on levels 5-9, then at the 10-minute mark I moved to a level 10.  At 15 minutes I started the climb–each minute I’d alternate increasing the level by 2, then decreasing by 1, until I reached level 15.  At that point, I began the descent–decreasing the level by 2, then increasing by 1 until I reached level 10.  At the 30 minute mark I completed a few intervals–1 minute at level 15 followed by 1 minute at level 10.  From 35-40 minutes I decreased the levels to cool down.

It was a tough workout, but it kept me engaged and not (as) bored.  As was the case with this elliptical workout, the levels here are relative;  the peak of my climb might be your warm-up level, so make sure to adjust so that the workout is challenging for you!

Hopefully, if you are like me in terms of cardio equipment boredom, this workout will help ease some of that boredom. 🙂