Intervals, Some Examples
I love intervals. They're a fantastic way to upgrade your cardio routine. You'll get a better training effect from intervals opposed to steady state conditioning. Which does have its place, but won't be the focus of this post.
Here are a some of our go-to interval protocols, how you should feel and what we're trying to accomplish.
10 sec FAST / 50 sec EASY
Feel: Lung burner. Ten seconds is short, but you should be gasping for air by the end of the round. Push the pace past your comfort zone and hang on. During the easy, take it nice and slow and work on regulating your breathing.
Goal: Increasing high intensity time. By working really hard for that short burst, we're trying to improve our anaerobic energy system and get comfortable working at high outputs.
2 min FAST / 1 min EASY
Feel: Pacing. Twice as long on the on interval will force you to pace yourself. The short rest will limit how hard you can go. Aim for being able to speak a couple words at a time, maybe 6/10 effort. If you can speak in full sentences, you need to dig a little deeper.
Goal: Aerobic capacity. By working at a slightly faster than normal pace with a short rest, we're challenging your aerobic system. Imagine you do a 10 minute AirBike time trial and get 5500m. Let's say you're doing 5x2min/1min. That's 10 minutes of "work." Ideally, since you have the rest in-between, you will get further than 5500m if you add up your work intervals.
30 sec FAST / 30 sec SLOW
Feel: Sustainable. When doing 30/30's, you should feel in control the whole time. Keep in mind, everyone's fitness levels are different, but for the most part, 30/30's are a nice introduction to interval training. We want to elevate the heart rate/breathing just a bit during the ON, and work easy enough that we can down regulate during the slow 30 seconds.
Goal: Ease into longer conditioning sessions. For some, 10 minutes steady is too much at first, and this is a good way to build up to more intense interval options. For a more trained endurance athlete, this protocol serves as a nice low intensity interval, fluctuating your heart rate slightly without letting it get too high.
This scratches the surface of some intervals we use @gain_sc. I hope this gives you an idea of how each protocol should feel so you can get the most from your training.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
