Interval Training

In my earlier post, I wrote about HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). HIIT will provide the fastest results in terms of fat loss and other fitness goals but the rewards come with significant risks that may not be acceptable to most individuals who have embarked on a fitness journey.

Once you start getting comfortable with running, (preferably with a solid foundation built using the couch-to-5k running program), you are ready to jump-start your fitness objectives with interval running.

Interval running is the more palatable form of intensity training. The basic premise used in HIIT (warm-up, series of intervals, and cool-down) still applies, but the focus of interval training is to run these intervals at a more acceptable speed (as opposed to all-out sprints witnessed in HIIT).

Let's see how this will work in practice. You will notice that the table that I have used here is almost identical to the one used in HIIT. The only difference is the timings.
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Activity	Time	Notes
Warm up Jogging	10 minutes	-
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Jog	2 minutes	Let your heartbeat slowly recover
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Jog	2 minutes	Let your heartbeat slowly recover
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Jog	2 minutes	Let your heartbeat slowly recover
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Jog	2 minutes	Let your heartbeat slowly recover
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Jog	2 minutes	Let your heartbeat slowly recover
Run	2 minutes	Run at 80% of your maximum speed
Cool down Jogging	10 minutes	-

That's 42 minutes total jogging/running. It might be challenging to most beginners but it is something you can aspire towards. If you are just starting off, you can easily modify the above formula to reduce the total time to around 20-30 minutes. For example, instead of 2 minutes, you can reduce the interval times to 1 minute each (which will result in 31 minutes total). Similarly, the warm-up and cool-down runs can be reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes, and so on.

Mix and match to suit your running requirements. The core objective here is to push your heart rate and bring it back down. Then keep repeating this for 4 to 8 times.

What are the benefits of interval training? Since you are alternating between jogging and fast running, you end up working both your heart (aerobic) during the jogging phase, and your muscles (anaerobic) during the fast running phase. If you would like to know more scientific details of the benefits of interval training, this article is highly recommended.

Since the duration of intervals is a bit longer, exact timing of the intervals is not very crucial. You can still use the Gymboss timer that I mentioned in HIIT, but you may be better off using a customized music mix that gives you audio cues when to start your intervals and when to slow down. This way, you can listen to some favorite music while doing the training. My favorite mixes are those created by Nike. These mixes can be purchased directly from iTunes and are specifically designed for interval running. The mixes are created by famous personalities like Lance Armstrong, Alberto Salazar etc.

Good luck.