Most people believe that the key to losing fat and getting in shape is to spend lots of time doing long slow cardio sessions. If you don’t get a sweat then it is not a good workout! There are several problems with this type of thinking. Firstly if you are just starting out the chance of suffering an injury with this approach is very high for the body is not ready for this type of demand and you also need to be certain you move well enough to handle this type of stress. Plus you are going to need a lot of time to devote to this type of training and most people are time poor already. Secondly, this type of exercise may burn calories at the time but it is not only the calories that is important. This does not mean all cardio exercise is bad for there is a better way and one that does not take that long to do and more importantly provides the body with positive adaptations that are very similar to the effects of strength training. That method is called INTERVAL TRAINING! In this article, I discuss how this works and how you can implement it into your weekly schedule no matter what age or ability you are.
What Is Interval Training?
Interval training is not a new thing to elite athletes and the fact it improves fitness fast and burns more fat than long slow cardio sessions is also old news to people in sports.
Several studies have confirmed that exercising in shorter bursts with rest periods in between burns more fat than exercising continuously for an entire session. This has been shown to hold true even when the session is not done at an extremely high intensity.
Below is a video explaining this in great detail.
For example, in one such study, those who cycled for 40 minutes, alternating four-minute bursts at 90 % effort with two minutes of rest, improved their cardiovascular fitness by 13%, and were able to burn 36% more fat during a later hour-long moderate cycling session.
Another study went one step further proving you can burn more fat exercising for 20 minutes than for 40 minutes!
In their trial, women either exercised for 20 minutes, alternating 8 seconds of sprinting on a bike with 12 seconds of exercising lightly, or exercised at a regular pace for 40 minutes. After exercising three times a week for 15 weeks, those who did the 20-minute, alternating routine lost three times as much fat as the other women!
The researchers believe this type of exercise works because it produces a unique metabolic response. Intermittent sprinting produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, which allow more fat to be burned from under your skin and within your muscles.
The resulting increase in fat oxidation is thought to drive the increased weight loss. Again, one of the best parts of this shorter but harder training is that it cuts down on the amount of time you need to exercise, which is great if you don’t have time for hour-long cardio workouts.
Anyone who finds their metabolism is a bit slow and sluggish should try interval training and I have found over the years it is a great way to give it a real kick-start.
In combination with strength training and a good nutrition plan, you can make significant inroads into your weight loss. Remember training alone is not enough, your food must be right if you want to lose weight.
This is something I discussed in more detail in the article – Why you are not losing weight even though you exercise
Improving Cardiovascular Fitness Is Critical For Heart & Lung Health
While interval training may help you to lose weight which is a great thing, this is nothing compared to the benefits it provides your heart and lungs.
When you consider that cardiovascular disease is the number 1 cause of death globally and more people die annually from heart disease than from any other cause, it is no wonder people are concerned about their health. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2016, representing 31% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85% are due to heart attack and stroke.
In many articles about the respiratory and cardiovascular systems I have explained in great detail how our breathing feeds oxygen to every cell in the body.
Without sufficient oxygen, people are more prone to health problems, including respiratory illnesses, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and even heart disease. But ordinary, everyday breathing isn’t enough to keep the oxygen flowing through the body at peak levels.
You need to exercise to challenge these systems and ensure they constantly improve.
In the book “Preventing Cancer” by Richard Beliveau PHD and Denis Gingras PHD they sum this up perfectly.
“The positive effect of exercise on the heart is due to a series of physiological and metabolic adaptations in the pulmonary, muscular, and cardiovascular systems that together increase oxygen consumption and energy production. Lower blood pressure, an increased vessel elasticity resulting from exercise truly makes it an all-in-one drug that targets several processes indispensable to maintaining cardiovascular health.”
You can read more about heart health in this article – How to use exercise to improve your heart health.
The message is clear we need to work on our fitness as much as our strength. So how do you do this?
Firstly we need to discuss heart rate testing to find out how hard you can make your interval sessions.
What Is A Normal Heart Rate?
Obviously this will vary from person to person but generally speaking a normal heart rate, when you’re not being active, is somewhere between 60 – 100 beats per minute. This is called your resting heart rate. If you’ve been active, you’ll need to wait at least five minutes before taking your pulse.
When you’re active, your heart beats faster to get more oxygen to your working muscles. The harder your body is working, the faster your heart will beat. For example, your heart rate when you’re sprinting will be much faster than your heart rate when you’re walking. If you’re exercising hard it’s normal for your heart rate to get up to 160 beats per minute or more, depending on your age and fitness levels.
There are other things that can make your heart beat faster, like caffeine, recreational drugs and some kinds of medications, and also when you feel strong emotions, like anxiety or fear.
Elite athletes and people with great fitness will usually have resting heart beats of less than 60 bpm.
How to Measure Your Pulse Rate?
These days there is many great watches and apps to help do this automatically but if you do not own one of those you can do it the old fashioned way of manually testing.
1.The easiest place to find your pulse is in your wrist.
2.Turn your hand so that your palm is facing upwards.
3.Now place the three middle fingers from your other hand over your wrist below the base of your thumb.
4.Press lightly to feel the pulse under your fingers. If you can’t feel anything press slightly harder.
You can measure your heart rate manually by checking your pulse.
Follow these three steps.
1.Find your pulse in your wrist (as explained above).
2.Count each beat for a total time of 30 seconds.
3.Double the number of beats you counted. This is your heart rate or pulse, measured in beats per minute.
What Is VO2 Max?
Fitness can be measured by the volume of oxygen you can consume while exercising at your maximum capacity.
VO2max is the maximum amount of oxygen in millilitres, one can use in one minute per kilogram of body weight. Those who are fit have higher VO2max values and can exercise more intensely than those who are not as well conditioned. Numerous studies show that you can increase your VO2max by working out at an intensity that raises your heart rate to between 65 and 85% of its maximum for at least 20 minutes three to five times a week.
However, you must “earn the right” to train like that and to do this safely you need to gradually build up. Some people may not need to train that hard to be healthy, it is all about finding the right balance.
Below is a video where I show you how to do some simple tests to determine your heart rate capability and VO2 max level.
You Don’t Have To Limit Interval Training To Running & Cycling?
Firstly, most people associate interval training with running and cycling as these are the most common forms of exercise discussed using this method. However, interval training can be applied to all exercise.
So if you are not a runner or cyclist you can still do this training and reap the same rewards.
Here are some alternatives you could use.
•Swimming
•Skipping
•Stair climbing
•Elliptical trainer
•Rower
•Battle ropes
•Boxing
•Even walking can be used for interval training effectively
The key is to find the activity you are really good at so this reduces the risk of injury when you try to do it fast. The worst thing you can do is try to implement interval training your form is not up to standard.
Unfortunately, insufficient knowledge and understanding concerning the principles on which interval training is based leads to inefficient workouts for many people who attempt to use it, and worse, it can cause injury or sickness if it’s overdone.
How To Design Your Interval Training Workout
Finding your level of performance for interval sessions is tricky, and you need to take several factors into account.
These factors can be remembered in the acronym DIRT which stands for:
•D = Distance of each fast run or cycle etc,
•I = Interval, or length of recovery between fast bursts,
•R = Repetitions. How many fast intervals you complete in one session,
•T = Time recorded for each interval.
Try to pick the right type of interval training for your goal.
The longer the exertion the longer the rest you will need to allow your body enough time to recover so you can push the limits again on the next interval. Remember you are not trying to pace yourself, but take your body to the edge of its limits, then rest and repeat the process over and over.
For example if you just want to lose weight then you might use a stationary bike and pedal fast for 12 secs followed by 8 secs slow for a total of 10 mins. The speeds you do are completely irrelevant, it is more about your exertion. Ten minutes doesn’t sound like much but when you are doing this type of intensity trust me this seems like an eternity.
However, if you are preparing for a 10km running race then you will need to do more longer distances such as 800m with a 2 min rest or 1200m with a 4 minute rest as your intervals.
I liked to use 400m and 800m distances a lot in my training sessions for Triathlon, 10km races, and Half Marathons as it dramatically improved my strength endurance and overall VO2max that helped me run faster times. The 800m in particular was brutal as it is a distance that is not short enough to be over quickly but not long enough to be able to pace yourself at a comfortable pace. Basically they hurt!
Below is a video of me doing 400m intervals at the running track combined with some strength exercises in between.
You will find some 6 of my favorite running programs in this article – 6 Running workouts for sports
When starting out try not to do too many reps. Start with 3-4 reps and build up over the coming weeks as you get better.Varying the rest times can also make a massive difference. Sometimes I like to stand still for 2 minutes whereas other times I might jog between sets.
Decreasing the length of the recovery interval between fast bursts achieves great results because this doesn’t allow your energy sources (ATP and glucose) to completely re-synthesize. Meaning you draw on the emergency back up system, the lactic acid system. Your body adapts to this by tolerating smaller amounts of lactic acid, enabling you to cruise at a “higher wattage”, or a much faster pace with less lactic acid building up.
The longer you stay in the lactic system the fitter you become and the more fat you are likely to lose.
Again it just depends on the goal of the workout or what you are working towards. Just remember you must find the find line between training too much versus not enough. I would never use interval training more than twice within a week.
Read the article about how to avoid over-training to see a more detailed look at this.
Turn Your Strength Workout Into A Cardiovascular Fitness Session
The last thing I will leave you with is that you can use your strength training workouts to feel like interval training and dramatically improve your fitness. So if you don’t like running, cycling, swimming etc you can use your strength training workout to do this instead.
Anyone who says to me you cannot get fit lifting weights is not doing it right and have not worked out with me before!
This depends on how you lift, and what exercises you are using. The variation between a bicep curl and barbell squat is massive in terms of fitness demands. If you waste your time sitting on machines or doing endless isolated exercises like the bicep curl you will get little benefit to your cardiovascular system.
However, if you use “big” functional movements like squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, push-ups and chin-ups your heart and lungs will get plenty of work. The leg exercises in particular place a massive stress onto the heart, as the body is forced to pump huge volumes of blood to the working muscles. The muscles in your legs are the largest muscles in your body, so when they are on the limit of their capability the heart is also working to its limit to keep oxygen in your blood so you can continue to move.
The harder your muscles work the more oxygen they require, which means we start breathing faster, our hearts start pumping faster, we get sweaty, and eventually have to stop to regain our breath. This is cardio.
If you don’t believe me pay attention to your breathing and pulse after a set of walking lunges or squats. Remember you must use functional movements to get the most out of this as the body has to send blood to so many muscles. These exercises require lots of oxygen and you’ll be huffing and puffing and your heart will be racing to get that oxygen out to the muscles.
I know when I complete a heavy squat or deadlift, or perhaps a faster multi-joint movement like a single cable push with a step my heart rate will elevate to 150 and 160 beats per minute within 15-30 seconds!
When you complete exercises like these in a circuit with little to no rest the oxygen demands are identical to the interval workouts with running, cycling etc.
You can read more about this in the article – 4 Brutal High Intensity Circuit Workouts To Accelerate Strength & Fitness Gains
Do You Need More Ideas?
If you want even more circuit workouts, strength programs and even cardio and sporting workouts, make sure you get a copy of the Little Black Book of Training Secrets where I share 101 amazing programs just like the ones shown in this article.
Click here to see more about what is inside this special report and download your digital copy instantly.
Summary
There is no doubt that Interval Training is by far the most effective method of cardio training for improving fitness and sports performance. It is also much more time efficient which is one of the biggest reasons people don’t get their exercise program completed.
If you are not doing this type of high intensity training now, make a start, remembering to start slow and gradual and build up as you get better. And for those of us just wanting to lose a few kilos this is one of the fastest ways to lose weight. Again it doesn’t need too much time to have a great effect which is even better for people who are time poor.
About The Author
Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 20 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specializes in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.
References
•Movement – By Gray Cook
•Athletes Acceleration Speed Training & Game Like Speed – by Lee Taft
•Endurance Training – by Peak Performance
•Lore Of Running – by Tim Noakes
•Anatomy Trains – by Thomas Meyers
•Motor Learning and Performance – By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
•Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance – By Vladimir Janda
•Advanced Program Design – By Paul Chek
•Twist Conditioning Sports Strength – By Peter Twist
•Twist Conditioning Sports Movement – By Peter Twist
•Running Research News