Are you treading water in your attempt at getting fit or losing a few pounds?

I don’t mean your local aqua aerobics class when I say treading water.

I am not knocking aqua aerobics as I am sure a lot of people get a great deal from it.

What I mean is, are you training in your comfort zone?

Obviously, how hard you train will depend on your current level of fitness and you should never dive into (there’s a lot of water here) a training regime without first consulting your GP.

It is important you first have a base level of fitness if you are going to push towards better gains.

Personally, I have participated in sports and training for most of my adult years, but have been guilty of treading water on too many occasions.

Recently I have bought a new bike and started to use stationary bikes and spinning bikes at the gym and found that you can get a really good low impact workout on them.

The method I have used is one of variation from gentle cycling to tough hill climbs and I have had some great results with it.

I am sure you are all aware of interval training. This forms the backbone of my sessions in the gym and you can push yourself a little further than if you just went at a steady pace. For example if you tried to climb a huge hill until you could climb no more, you would find you actually climbed more by doing a series of short hills followed by lengths of flat.

You can use interval training in any form of exercise such as running flat out for 30 seconds followed by 1 minute at a lesser pace. Continue this process and you will find you have run flat out longer than you would have done straight off.

You can increase the resistance on a lot of machines and vary your workouts using both strength and speed.

They say variety is the spice of life, so it should be in your training.

Keep your body guessing, as it will soon get used to treading water.

Keep pushing to new limits and you will be surprised at the gains you make.

Keep in your comfort zone and you could be there a long time.

Dave W