Basics: Cardio (2 of 2)

Yesterday we talked about the very basics of cardio.  Today we’re going to add a key technique, the cardio interval.

Most of us, when we head to the gym in the dark, cold morning, plop ourselves on the spin bike or the treadmill or the stair machine and go at a steady pace until we’re done.  This is a perfectly valid way to work out and if it is working for us, we can carry on.

 

However, those of us who want to progress more quickly, or have already progressed to the point where we are bored, or just want to get out the gym quicker may want to try intervals.  Here’s how they work.  We warm up for five minutes or so.  Then we bump up the pace or incline or resistance for a minute so that we’re working at the very high end of our appropriate range.  At the end of the minute, we return to a pace/incline/resistance that allows us to recover (but still stay in our target heart rate zone) for a minute or so.  Then we repeat the tough minute and the recovery period as many times as we want, ending with a cool down. We can burn an hour’s worth of steady-state calories in half an hour this way AND we improve our cardio function more than just chugging along.

 

A few notes to keep in mind, though.  Many pieces of equipment with programs already on them have an interval program.  If the hard interval is longer than one minute, it’s not really interval training (but it might be fun and we can certainly try it).  The key to interval training is that we work as hard as we possibly can for that minute.  By the end of a minute, we have used up our ATP supplies (remember ATP from biology way back when?  It’s our quick energy cellular power.  We have about a minute’s supply before it’s depleted and we have to give it a minute or so to regroup.).  If we’re working hard enough, we really can’t go longer than a minute without a recovery.  Our bodies will inevitably slow once our ATP is depleted.

 

The recovery interval can vary.  When we first start out with intervals, we might need three or four minutes to recover between intense intervals.  As we get more fit, that time can shorten until we’re doing minute on and minute off.

 

If we are working out outside and don’t want to focus on our watches, we can do our intervals by distance.  We choose a landmark like the end of the block or a really cool tree and go as fast as possible until we get there.  Then we pick another landmark and go slower until we get to that one.  Alternatively, we can choose a route with built-in intervals in the form of hills, which work for walking and running and biking and the like.  Outside intervals may not exactly align with the one minute max and the ATP cycle as discussed above, but they still work.

 

Go play.