Healthy Living – Interval training

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It is hard to believe that more than a month has passed since your last chat about exercising.

During this post we took a closer look at; The how often and how hard of exercising
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As promised with my next exercise post we will look deeper into interval training. So, here it is.

What is interval training?

Interval training is high intensity exercise with recovery periods (rest periods) in between.

I found interval training the best exercise for burning calories. This was something I learned many years ago from Bill Phillips, Body-for-LIFE program.

But what I like most about interval training is that it is not boring. If I have to walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes at the same pace I will get pretty bored and ten to one will not return the next day and neither the day after that.

There are different ways to do interval training and again it is something that is depending on your fitness level. When using a treadmill you will as an example do 1 minute of high intensity work (sprint) followed by 2 minutes of low intensity work (walk) and will alternate for a period of 20 to 25 minutes.

What is nice is that you are in charge of the intervals. How you would want to do it and how hard you want to exercise all depends on you only.

The idea is that you must work as hard as possible in your high sets as to take your heart rate to the highest level and to fully recover during the low intensity intervals by getting your heart rate down and your breath back.

By adding higher intensity intervals you are not only building endurance but you are burning those calories. I use my heart rate monitor to monitor the intensity of my workout.

When on my high intensity I will push my heart rate to 160+ beats per minute and on my low intensity level I will bring it down as low as 120+ beats per minute.

An example of interval training

If you are not a member at your local gym or you don’t have a treadmill at home the best interval training is walking.

Slow ➜ Fast ➜ Slow ➜ Fast

This you will do for +/- 25 minutes at a time.

Whatever you do and how you do it, keep your goal in mind at all times. The same with your workout, be realistic and make sure that you get to the levels that you have planned.

How to begin

This is by far the easiest. Remember the driving to work, taking the kids to school and going to the shops of chapter one? This is the same, you have to give those first step. You have to start the journey.
Stop looking at your watch, put down the magazine and turn of the television. Get going!

A list of 10 things that you must keep in mind

1. Choose an exercise that you enjoy.
2. Choose an exercise that will challenge you.
3. Make sure you have the right equipment (shoes for example) for the chosen activity.
4. Begin where you are in your fitness level and not where you want to be
5. Start slowly. Start with 2 to 3 days of 25 – 30 minutes workouts
6. Try new things so that you don't get bored.
7. Increase your workout time and level each week
8. Monitor you progress. If you see results you will stay focused
9. Listen to your body. If you feel tired or if you are sore you are allowed to take an extra day to recover
10. After 4 – 6 weeks change your program

When you start your cardiovascular training program you will find that your body burns a lot of calories. With time, doing the same exercise over and over your body will start burning fewer calories.

You will have to work longer and with a higher intensity to continue burning calories and losing weight

Next time I will take a closer look at exercising that you can do at home.

Until then, keep it up!

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