Bear Crawl Sprints!

We've got the Cybex Arc Trainer at my gym and I love this thing. It's kind of like an elliptical machine but with longer strides and even lower impact - you can use the arm bars for a full body workout or just balance yourself and do legs. I go for the full monty!

At it's lowest incline it simulates x-country skiing, then elliptical, then stair stepping, then hiking, and finally mountain climbing.

Of course, I max it out and put it on 10 (mountain climbing mode) and the resistance up to 100 (also max) and grab the handles on the heart rate sensors and slowly climb the mountain while maintaining my HR at 120bpm (fat burning zone).

I set the timer for 60 mins - and every 5 minutes, i reach forward and grab the front handles and I do a 40 second all out sprint. This raises my HR to about 173bpm at the end of the sprint. The sprints are insane though - It's similar to a bear crawl sprint up a mountain. In 60 mins, it said I burned 1365 calories but I'm not sure how accurate that is... all I know is my legs are shaking and feel like they left my body when I'm done. It's an absolutely insane workout.

Now that the weather is starting to get reasonably warm, I'm going to take my cardio out in the hilly woods and play... I can't wait!