Until my clients stop focusing their cardio program around slow/long duration activities, I will continue to provide more information about the benefits of high-intensity interval training. If your goal is to run a marathon, compete in a triathlon, or you have extra free time in your daily schedule to do cardio for an extended period of time (an hour or more) then you are an exception to this post (even though interval training has been show to help improve your lactate threshold, VO2 max, and fat oxidation which is critical when trying to maintain a fast pace in a marathon or triathlon). A classic study illustrates that interval training (in this case 30 seconds of maximal cycle sprinting followed by 4 minutes of rest/recovery) is as effective as long duration exercise (90+ minutes).
The study concluded with this statement, “the most striking finding from the present study was that two very diverse forms of training induced remarkably similar changes in exercise capacity and selected muscle adaptations that are related to exercise tolerance. Given the markedly lower training volume in the SIT group, our results suggest that intense interval training is indeed a time-efficient strategy to induce rapid muscle and performance adaptations comparable to traditional endurance training.”
Source: Gibala M.J., Little J.P., Van Essen M., Wilkin G.P., Burgomaster K.A., Safdar A., Raha S., Tarnopolsky M.A. Short-term sprint interval versus traditional endurance training: similar initial adaptations in human skeletal muscle and exercise performance. The Journal of Physiology, 575 901-911.
Train Hard-Train Smart
www.asap-pt.com
[...] with their exercise program. I always explain to these individuals how they should be doing interval training to spice things up and the benefits associated with interval training. Many of them find this more exciting then their regular routine, but still look for alternatives [...]