Variety is the spice of life; especially when it comes to fitness training.
If you’re doing the same long, slow, cardio workout over and over again, then don’t expect better results. This doesn’t mean aerobic exercise isn’t important, but if you want to get fitter, faster, in less time then you need to do interval training.
Interval training is where you alternate hard exercise with rest or easier exercise.
You see, to get fitter you have to workout with more intensity. And since you can’t go hard for very long, you need to break up your hard exercise with easy bits. Now I’ve said this before so if you’ve been getting Stay Sharp newsletters for a while, you’re probably thinking what I’ve just said is nothing new.
What I want to share with you, is how you can vary your intervals so you keep improving your fitness and not get bored doing the same thing over and over again.
Here are some options to vary your interval training workouts.
1. Switch exercise methods
You might alternate:
- skipping with body weight exercises
- running with pushups
- treadmill running with an exercise bike
The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and the equipment you have; so be creative.
2. Increase or decrease the length of the interval
You can do 3 minutes bursts or some 30 second bursts; you could do fast walking for one block or 3 blocks; or you could do 5 minutes of hard cycling on the flat or 1 minute hard getting up a hill.
Typically the shorter the duration of the interval, the higher the intensity. Just mix it up for different sessions or within the one session.
3. Increase or decrease the number of intervals per workout
Obviously the more intervals you do the more work you are doing but don’t fall into the trap of doing more at the expense of doing them hard.
A client of mine was doing 10 repeats up Jacobs Ladder (221 steps). I suggested he only do 5 but go faster. Not only did his fitness improve, but his workouts were shorter which meant he had more time to read the morning paper and enjoy his coffee.
Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.
4. Increase or decrease the rest time between intervals
By reducing how long you rest for, you give the muscles less time to recover so they have to work harder the next interval. This is a reasonable strategy if you are trying to get faster, especially if you have a race or event coming up.
Just be careful not to shorten your rest to the point where you can’t go as hard during the interval. Quality versus quantity is the key.
Am I fit enough for intervals?
Some people have said to me that they don’t think they are fit enough to do intervals. While it is important to have reasonable fitness before you push yourself HARD, the good thing about exercise is it is self-limiting. If you are not very fit, you’ll get puffed at a moderate pace. As you get fitter, you will have to go faster to get puffed. The important thing is not how fast you go compared to others, but how hard you are pushing yourself. Provided you don’t enjoy torturing yourself, you’re unlikely to push yourself too hard.
Will I feel good doing intervals?
If you are doing them at a high enough intensity then probably not! You will however feel good, maybe even great, after you’ve cooled down, had a shower and recovered.
And they’ll make the rest of the day seem easy.
[...] David wrote an interesting post today onHow to vary your exercise for the best resultsHere’s a quick excerpt [...]