It can be done on any workout in any location. It involves bursts of high intensity work followed by low intensity or rest. It's the magic key to running faster, swimming faster, cycling faster in fact it's the key to making you faster in almost any sport that requires some kind of speed.
Interval training can supercharge your fitness, boost your metabolism, burn off that extra fat and let you start reaching those goals that you have set yourself.
As with most types of training there are many different types of interval work you can do. For the purpose of this blog that's what I'm going to cover.
In general, interval training is best done 2 or 3 times per week. It can last anywhere between 5 to 30 minutes or more, depending on your level of fitness and what you are training for.
Since I myself am a runner I'm going to give examples of some running interval workouts but once you know how to do this wonder workout you can implement it to any sport.
So remember it all about going hard at a certain intensity for an amount of time followed by a lower intensity or complete rest for an amount of time.
The first type of interval training is one of my favourites. It's simple and doesn't require much brain use which I find best when I'm running quite hard!
You simply get out and start off at a very easy pace for 5min. This is your warmup then run hard for 3min with a 2min recovery run. I like this one as it's in blocks of 5min. So every 5min you know you have to run hard again. Just keep repeating it for as long as you have planned for your workout.
The time and pace will vary depending what your training for. If you are training for a 10k run then you will go at about your 5k pace. If you are training for a 1/2 marathon then do them at about your 10k pace and you would do more reps of them. If you are training for a marathon then 1/2 marathon pace is good and again you would do more reps
Always finish with a 5min easy warmdown
Another interval workout that's quite effective are hill intervals. First find a course that has a mixture of hills and flat ground. You start with 5min easy as your warmup then every hill you get to run about 90% effort up the hill. Once you reach the top you then run easy until the next hill. Do for as long as you had planned for your workout. Finish with 5min easy run.
Another good hill one but a bit boring for my liking are hill repeats. Just find a hill than 100-500m long then sprint up that sucker then walk back down. You might do 2 sets of 5 reps making each rep faster than the one before. Word of caution though, this can be a vomit workout!!!!
Next one is a great marathon workout and does require quite good fitness. You will cover over 20km in this one all up including the warmup and warmdown. Find a course that has km markings on it or wear a GPS watch. Start with your 5min easy warmup then do 1km hard, 1km easy, 2km hard, 1km easy, 3km hard, 1km easy, 4km hard, 1km easy, 5km hard then do a 5min warmdown. You might find an ice bath after this one will help you recover better. If you are training for a marathon then do each hard rep at your marathon pace or slightly faster and make the 1km recovery run as slow as you like
So far I've given you some great road interval workouts. Now lets look at some on the track.
First up make sure you do a really good warmup before you attempt these ones. That will consist of slow running, some drills then some stride's
For most people you want to do around 2km to 3km in total of hard running. If you are training for longer distances then you can do up to 5km or 10km of hard running but your intensity will be slower than shorter ones.
First type of track intervals are repeats of a certain distance followed by a distance of recovery or total rest.
Popular one's are
- 8-10x400m with a 30sec-1min recovery or a 200m easy run
- 5-6x600m with a 1min-2min recovery or a 300m-400m easy run
- 4-5x800m with a 2-3min recovery or a 400m easy run
- 3-5x1km with a 3min recovery or a 400m-600m easy run
Other track intervals are pyramids
examples are
- 1x400m, 1x600, 1x800m, 1x1km then rest 5min then 1x1km, 1x800m, 1x600m, 1x400m. The goal of this one is to do the second half faster than the first half.
If you're in the gym and you're on those BORING things called cardio machines then try spicing up your workout with some short sharp intervals.
So as you can see, you can implement these ideas on any cardio workout of your choice. You can do it on a treadmill, a bike, a rowing machine or in the pool. Play around and have some fun with them
One thing is for certain though....you will feel pain. The good news is you will get fast results in a short amount of time
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