DAY 4: 35 MIN Rebounder Sprint Interval Training For Perimenopause / Menopause

This is a different kind of rebounder workout for Michelle Briehler. In fact, I am very impressed by it. It is straight from Next Level by Stacy T. Sims, PhD, and Selene Yeager, an excellent book about how to train during perimenopause, menopause and post menopause. I do HIIT training (High Intensity Interval Training) but I realize I’ve never done true Sprint Interval Training (SIT), which is a more intense form of HIIT training. According to Dr. Sims, SIT can “provide the metabolic stimulus to trigger the performance boosting body composition changes that our hormones helped us achieve in our premenopausal years.” This workout is exactly one of the SIT suggestions Dr. Sims gives. And I LOVE that! After reading Next Level, I incorporated a lot of what Dr. Sims suggests but I never really did SIT–I just stuck with the HIIT I was already doing.

What is SIT? It is HIIT training but you you are giving maximum effort–literally, all out. I don’t think you can do SIT without a heart rate monitor to challenge yourself. I did the first cycle without looking at my Apple watch. Mostly because I wear glasses but I do not wear glasses during a workout so I cannot see the numbers on my watch. But I do have a set of glasses I keep in the workout room to see small things when necessary. Most HIITs I do do not give you a long enough recovery to put on glasses, check my heart rate then take them off and set them aside but the 30 second recoveries in this workout did give me enough time, so during the second cycle I started referencing my watch during the recoveries. My heart rate was getting up into the 160s. Which according to a heart rate calculator is 90-100% of my max heart rate (the calculator uses my age and resting heart rate to calculate max heart rate). But once I started tracking it, it became a challenge for me–by the last cycle I got my heart rate into the low 170s. And I was going all out. And by the end of each interval I was done, the fuel completely depleted from my muscles. But you get 30 seconds to recover before the next interval and 4 minutes to let you heart rate completely drop between each cycle. I couldn’t get my heart rate under 100 during the 4 minutes but maybe thats because I stayed on the rebounder doing a health bounce. The 4 minutes between the 3rd and 4th cycle, I did stop completely moving for a minute or so, just to see if I could get my heart rate under 100 but I couldn’t. I think I just had too much energy and Michelle gives off great vibes during this workout, keeping you very motivated.

So, long story short. This is a great workout and some very intense cardio. You do not have to do it on rebounder. Use a treadmill, stationary bike, rower, elliptical machine. Get out your step and do some crazy intense step move. The object is to go all out, as hard as you can go. Michelle states, and I agree, that his kind of workout is kind of hard to do on your own. You can do it, but having the encouragement and energy of others, even if they are on your TV, goes a long way to making a workout like this bearable. Now that I’ve done this workout I want to re-arrange my workout schedule to include it every week. Below is the “official”  workout review summary–the one I wrote before actually doing the workout.

35 Min Rebounder Sprint Interval Training is 37:54 minutes; 1:10 minute intro, 3:10 minute warm up, 1:30 minute cool down and 50 second stretch. I did Naomi Joy‘s wonderful 9 minute rebounder stretch after finishing this.

According to Michelle, this is more intense than a HIIT workout–one level up. You are literally sprinting all out for 30 seconds then you get a 30 second recovery in which you do a health bounce. You do 5 of these 30/30 intervals then you get a 4 minute recovery. During the 4 minute recovery you do whatever want–but something easy so your heart rate recovers. Michelle and crew leave their rebounders, walk around, and drink water. You do this 4 times. By end of the workout you will have done 20 of these 30/30 intervals. Michelle has an “assault bike” that they all take turns using instead of sprinting on the rebounder.

There is a timer in the upper right hand corner of the screen counting down your intervals and recoveries. There is also a progress bar right above the interval timer counting down the workout time as a percentage.

For more info on Michelle Brieher’s workouts and other (free) streaming workouts I’ve sampled and reviewed, check out my Streaming page.