Your Summer Burn

Break out of the gym and into the beautiful weather with these five high-intensity, fat-burning cardio workouts.

- Michael Berg

We spend more than half the year waiting for sweet summer to arrive. Then when it does, we persist in trudging to the the stale, dank confines of the gym to do cardio on the same old machines we labored on over the endless frigid months. Nothing against treadmills, but it’s time to kiss them goodbye (well, not literally — yuck).

The following five expert-designed workouts will free you from the gym without compromising your fitness-building, fatburning efforts. Go outside and try them today because as we learn all too quickly each year — summer is fleeting while winter is (seemingly) forever.

1 | SPRINTS

This on-the-oval regimen is the go-to of Samantha Clayton, vice president of Worldwide Sports Performance and Fitness for Herbalife and a former Olympic track athlete. “Think of sprinting as the weightlifting of the running world,” says Clayton, who competed at the 2000 Olympic Games in the 200 meter and 4x100 meter relay events for Great Britain. “It’s high intensity and high impact and promotes muscular growth — especially in the posterior-chain muscles like the glutes and hamstrings.”

THE WORKOUT

WARM-UP

Jog two laps (800 meters).*

PRE-SPRINT WORKOUT

- Do the following moves in order for 30 seconds each. Complete three rounds.

- Walking Lunge

- Running With High Knees

- Side Step

- Butt Kicks

- Skipping

SPRINT WORKOUT

Repeat the below sequence eight times through.

Sprint 100 meters (on the straightaways) Walk 100 meters (on the curves)

COOL-DOWN

Walk two laps (800 meters).