Jazz Up your Workouts With Interval Training

Are you ready to jazz up your workout routine? Are you wondering what interval workouts are? More importantly why should you include them into your fitness plan? Interval training workouts can help you to burn more calories, boost your metabolism, increase your speed, improve stamina or move you up to the next fitness level. Interval training is all about improving your own personal fitness goals. Interval training means short, high- intensity exercise periods alternated with periods of rest. The idea is to repeat this cycle several times during your fitness workout.

Take walking, for instance. If you are in good shape, you might include short bursts of jogging into your regular walk. If you are less fit, you might alternate faster walking periods into your leisurely walking pace. Walk 5 minutes leisurely and fast for 1 minute. Repeating this cycle for 15 or 20 minutes.

There are many benefits to interval training. The more vigorously you exercise the more calories you will burn.  As your cardiovascular fitness improves you will be able to exercise longer and with more intensity. Exercise will not seem so boring and the time will seem to fly by.  No special equipment is necessary, you simply modify your current fitness routine. At first it is very demanding. If you are just a beginner take it slow and build up to a more intense routine.

Think of intensity on a scale of 1-10.  1 would be standing still, 5 a light jog or walk and 10 running or walking really really fast.  For fitness training keep your higher intensity bursts around 2-5 minutes in duration and your lower-intensity periods at 2-5 minutes. You can systematically raise and lower your intensity levels ( 5 minutes of steady walking, 1 minute of jogging and repeat for 15 minutes) or alternate more randomly. You might also change speed, incline or some other variable to help increase the intensity.

It is important to warm up before you start your intervals and to cool down when you are finished. My warm up is a ride on my bike to the gym which takes about 15 minutes.  Yours could be a light jog, a short walk or 5 minutes of stretching. Don’t be discouraged if you fatigue easily at first. Set yourself a short time period at first and build up to a comfortable period for your interval workouts. I found that alternating with intensity bursts of 30-45 seconds at first, helped me to build to 2 minute bursts.  Start with 5- 6 intervals and gradually work up to 10 or 15.  30 minutes total time is a great workout, 3 days a week. It may take several weeks or months to build up to 30 minutes depending on your fitness level. Your body will let you know when you are ready to go all out or increase the intensity.

The type of exercise you choose is really up to you.  You might choose to run, walk, or ride a bike outside.  At the gym you can choose the treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike or stairmaster. It is the short bursts of intensity and longer rest intervals  that you control. The short bursts of intensity are all out, go for it bursts. The rest intervals are about 50% of those bursts.

There are many ways to make your workout an interval training workout. Take the treadmill for instance.  Try changing an interval every minute as you increase the pace for 7 minutes.
Minute 1- 2.5 speed
Minute 2- 2.7 speed
Minute 3- 2.9 speed
Minute 4- 3.1 speed
Minute 5- 3.3 speed
Minute 6- 3.5 speed
Minute 7- 3.7 speed
MInute 8- Start at Minute 1 again .  3 sets of this will give you 21 minutes of great exercise.
For variety and adding intensity, you may want to increase the incline along with your speed or increase the speed to start and end with a light jog. I do 4 minutes of continuous walking 1 minute of jogging for 30 minutes.  I increase my speed and incline in intervals of 4 minutes and every fifth minute I jog for 1 minute. This is a great workout for me.
Minute 1-4       3.1 speed 0 incline
Minute 5-         5.0 speed 0 Incline
Minute 6-9       3.2 speed 1.0 incline
Minute 10        5.1 speed 1.0 incline
Minute 11-14  3.3 speed  2.0 incline
Minute 15        5.2 speed  2.0 incline
An easy way to begin interval workouts is to start out at a steady pace for 5 minutes and then go as fast as you can for 30 seconds or 1 minute, bring the pace down again for  a few minutes until you are ready to go as fast as you can again.  The more you vary your pace and intensity level, the more you excite your muscles and burn up calories. It is fun to change your routine and challenge your body.  It really does jazz up the routine and keeps it interesting. You don’t want your body to get too acclimated at a steady pace, keep it guessing and you will see great results. Research shows that interval training workouts are superior to aerobic exercise for weight loss.

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To avoid injury to your muscles, tendons or bones, start slowly. If you think you are over doing it, slow down. It is important that you build up your stamina, especially if you are not used to exercising. Warm ups and cool downs are very important. Your body needs to be ready to accept a more strenuous routine.

Interval workouts are not appropriate if you have a chronic health problem or haven’t been exercising regularly. Like most things it is best to consult your doctor before trying any type of interval training.

Ready to JAZZ it up?  Go for it, you may really be surprised at the results!

Happy Anti-Aging Everyone!

Chuck and Gayle