Because of some nasty weather last weekend, I was expecting only one die-hard (or idiot) to show up for the 10:10 Wellness Saturday workout. That idiot would be Josh, my 20 year old buddy who will soon pass his triathlon mentor. I thought the two of us could get some good interval training. To my surprise another idiot, Julie (a walker), also braved the elements. She got in on the interval act as Josh and my effort inspired her to add some run intervals to her walk! Here's Julie in the rain.
The interval workout is something that can be applied to any endurance training (walking, running, swimming, cycling, rowing, you name it...) but is most often applied to running. If you're not a runner, the workout I'm gonna outline here can apply to anything aerobic so stay tuned - unless you're a professional bodybuilder. Also, the workout can be performed virtually anywhere and with no props other than a watch - and you don't even have to have that.
"Why?" I hear some of you asking. "Can't I just go out and walk or run?" Yes you can - and that's good. But doing intervals, aka wind sprints, has several benefits. First, you'll increase your fitness (aerobic capacity) which enables you to burn more fat in the same amount of time. Two guys, one fit, one fat, run for 5 minutes at the same heart rate. The fit guy covers a mile, the fat guy a quarter mile. Who do you think burned more calories?
Second, your body, or muscles cells in particular, will develop more fat-burning enzymes. This not only improves your ability to burn fat when you exercise but all day long too! That's why some skinny people can eat so much. What we're doing with intervals is forcing our bodies to recover under stress. Our remarkable bodies, if properly fueled and rested, will always respond to the stresses we impose.
Third, you won't be bedridden the day after a company softball game, a pick-up game of tag football, or whatever fun activity to which you're unexpectedly recruited. In my situation, I still play a little soccer. My Blackwatch, er Fusion, teammates might accuse me of playing very little, but nonetheless, I don't like to show up for a game or practice without some sprint training. When I do, the next morning's not pretty.
So what exactly are we talking about? An interval is simply a short burst of intensity injected into your comfortable pace. If you're a "jogger", that means you pick up your pace and "run" for 1 to 2 minutes. If you're a walker, it means you pick up your pace into a fast walk for 3 to 5 minutes. In either case you go moderately faster, not an all-out sprint, then you go back to your comfortable pace. When you catch your breath, you do it again. As you increase your fitness, you add more reps.
Run interval workouts are most often associated with running tracks, those quarter mile ovals at our schools. Those are a great venue because you can always be sure of your run distance. Ladder workouts (400, 800, 1200, 800, 400 for example), or straight intervals (4 x 400, or 4 x 800, etc.) are just 2 examples of a track interval run.
But I don't have a track in my hood. So I created a track in my head and watch. I call it my "Anywhere Interval Workout". I could call it the "Anywhere Interval Run" or AIR because people remember acronyms - we'll just see how that plays out. The point is, we can do this workout without a track - all you need is a watch or a keen ability to mark time in your head.
The format I use is based on a ratio of sprint time to rest time. These ratios and times for the workout I do (and did last Saturday in the rain with Josh) look like this:
2:1 Two minutes of "sprint" followed by one minute of "rest" where rest is a slower run pace
1:1 One minute of sprint followed by one minute of rest
1:2 30 seconds of sprint followed by one minute of rest
1:3 15 seconds of sprint followed by 45 seconds of rest (walking in this case)
The next part of the equation is how many repetitions of each I'll do. Time is often a factor here, but to keep this workout to about 45 minutes, I'll do 2 of the 2:1, 3 of the 1:1, 4 of the 1:2, and 5 of the 1:3. The intervals are sandwiched between a 10 minute warm-up and 10 minute cool-down at a mellow pace.
Those of us who excelled at math know that we could change the numbers but keep the same ratios. So instead of sprinting 2 minutes and resting 1, we could sprint 4 minute and rest 2. Depending on your specific training goal, you may want longer/slower intervals to prepare for longer races (10K, 1/2 marathon, or marathon), or faster/shorter intervals to prepare for true sprinting (soccer, basketball, tennis, etc.).
To determine my pace for the sprints, I use my heart rate monitor - but you can really judge this by how out of breath you feel. By the end of the rest interval you should have caught your breath or resumed your breathing rate before you sprinted. If you can't do this in the rest interval time, then your sprint pace was too fast.
So as you might have guessed, your sprint times get increasingly faster in my AIR (look, I'm using it already) workout above as your rest intervals become longer. By the last set of intervals, the 1:3's, the sprint for me is an all out sprint, like the 50 yard dash we did in PE.
Let me tell you, I get some funny looks when I'm doing 50 yard dashes in a neighborhood. "He must be runnin' from something" people must think. Or, "can't this guy make up his mind" as I sprint pass another runner on the road who then passes me as I'm in my walk interval - like those annoying drivers on the highway.
If you've got a decent base, whether you're a walker or runner, I challenge you to add some intervals to your program. You'll become a better butter burner and a better athlete.
