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Whenever you’re planning out what you’re going to do for cardiovascular exercise, it’s always a great idea to include interval training in that plan.  Interval training is a great option no matter what your goal is.  It could be improving your endurance or burning more fat off, either way, interval training is a must.

Interval training is a type of exercise that alternates between high-intensity and low-intensity cardiovascular exercise.  Interval training has many different aspects to it.  When I plan out an interval workout for a client, I look at four different variables.  First is the intensity of the intervals. This can be any aspect such as heart rate, speed, treadmill incline, or resistance of the pedals of a bike.  It could even be a combination of these.  Intensity can play a huge part in the exercise session because the higher the intensity, the faster the results.

The next variable is the length of time of the hard interval.  When I start out a new client on an interval program, the length of the hard interval is normally around 1-2 minutes.  The third variable, the length of time of the rest period is either just as long as the hard interval, or a little longer.  An example of one interval series might be 1 minute hard, 2 minutes easy.

The final variable is the number of times to do the intervals.  Whether that’s 5 repetitions of 1 minute hard and 2 minutes easy or 10 repetitions of this, the amount of repetitions determine the overall length of time for the workout.  Starting out, a client of mine may be able to handle 15 minutes total of intervals, or maybe even 30 minutes; it really depends on the endurance of the individual when starting out.

So why’s interval training so important?  For someone who’s been exercising for a while, interval training is a great, new way to “shock” the body as some people call it.  If your body has never experienced interval training, it’ll be something totally new to it.  If you’ve been doing the same workout for some time, your body actually can remember the workouts you’re doing, and just like anything else, it wants to be lazy, so it’ll become efficient at that type of workout.  Interval training can be something completely different to the body, which means it won’t be efficient at it, and it’ll have to work harder to perform it.  This’ll lead to faster weight loss results, as well as faster endurance gains.

The great thing about interval training is even though you may have been doing it for a while, there are always adjustments that can be made to it to keep it intense.  Since you can change so many variables, it’s very hard for your body to ever become efficient at it.

Interval training is a great exercise for weight loss because since it requires short bouts of intense exercise, it’ll cause your body to burn more calories off in a 30-minute period than just doing plain old cardio at a steady low intensity.  It also allows your endurance to improve because although you may not be able to handle 30 minutes of higher-intensity cardio, your body can handle intervals of it. 

Interval training allows you to work both energy systems in your body: the aerobic and anaerobic systems.  The aerobic system uses oxygen to convert carbohydrates in your body into energy.  The anaerobic system uses stored energy, and through this process of using the stored energy, lactic acid is produced; lactic acid is what makes your muscles burn when you work out.  A great thing about interval training is that by doing short bouts of high-intensity exercise, you can achieve the same benefits from exercising at a continuous high intensity without too much of the muscle burn. 

By using both energy systems, your body can achieve a greater level of fitness, which as I said earlier, results in faster weight loss, increased endurance, increased speed, increased power, etc.  On top of that, interval training breaks your workout up so you don’t get bored, and it’s a safer alternative than performing continuous high-intensity exercise and risking the injuries that can result from it.

If just starting out with interval training, make sure you pace yourself.  Don’t do interval training everyday; give at least one day of lower-intensity exercise in between interval workouts.  Also, it would be good to start with 1 day per week of interval training and work up to 3 or 4 days per week.  If you do too much too soon, your body could burn out, and injury and extreme fatigue could result.  One other thing, always include a low-intensity warm-up and cool-down; this decreases the risk for injury, among other things. 

Interval training can provide some unbelievable benefits, and I feel it’s the best type of cardio workout you can do, but as always (I know this sounds prescription drug commercial-like), if you feel uncomfortable designing an interval training program, talk to a personal trainer or other fitness professional.

Treadmill interval training example:

5 minute warm-up at 3.0 mph and 0% incline

1 minute at 3.2 mph and 2% incline
1 minute at 3.8 mph and 7% incline
(Repeat both 10 times)

5 minute cool-down at 3.0 mph and 0% incline

Dan Falkenberg is the co-founder and co-owner of Your Live Trainers.  He can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.

Tags: cardiovascular exercise, exercise selection, program design, weight loss