Wednesday 13 June 2012

Burn crazy calories in NO time with intervals

I have been trying to figure out how to fit more running into my schedule these days so that I can cost through my 1/2 marathon in Nov. This can be a struggle with my schedule. I had a break between clients last night so i hopped on the treadmill, I was planning to run at a steady pace but soon realised that my distance wasn't moving along as fast as I'd like and I only have about 35-40mins before my next client...so out came the intervals!! Sprint for 1min: light jog or walk for 1min. I wore my heart rate monitor to keep an eye on how high I was getting during my sprints; I avg 165-170bpm at the end of the sprints. I know that seem high but you need to understand that you gage your body. At the end of the interval your body should be uncomfortable, it should be a struggle, but that's why you then get a 60-90sec "rest" between the intervals. I would bring my heart rate back down to 145-150 by the time I went up to sprint again. I burned HUGE calories in the 35mins on the treadmill, felt my core like crazy and got my 5km in too!
You can do an interval with ANY PIECE of cardio and you do NOT have to run. You can use incline on a treadmill or find a hill outside and speed walk up it, or just use speed walking with no holding onto the treadmill. You can do it on a bike, elliptical, anything! Do NOT use my heart rate as a gage for your intervals, the best way to gage is to rank how hard the exercise is for you from 1-10. 1= you could do it all day, 10=you have to stop immediately. On your low or "easy" interval you should be at about a 6=6.5 but during the high or "hard" phase you should feel like an 8-9.
Try and use intervals for your next cardio workout and see how many calories you will burn! Its awesome. They are also good to throw in 1-2x week in place of your steady cardio workout. It will allow you to increase your steady cardio level because you are used to pushing yourself beyond that in the intervals.
Try it for 20mins and see how you feel. Follow the guideline:

3-5 min- Warm Up with brisk pace to increase Heart Rate
20 min- Intervals (60sec high: 60-90sec low)
3-5min- Cool Down to decrease Heart Rate
stretch

if you are going to combine with a strength workout, so at the beginning

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