INTERVAL TRAINING: A great way to get fit without long lasting treadmill sessions!

Today I wanted to give you my opinion on one of the most effective ways of getting fit without spending hours and hours in the gym pounding the treadmill. The method I will explain is nothing new or anything extraordinary it is just an effective way of getting your heart rate up, burn a good amount of calories without having to spend half of your day training. The protocol is called Tabata and was originally invented by Dr. Izumi Tabata from Japan in 1996. The actual workout consists of the following:

• 20 seconds hard work followed by 10 seconds rest/recovery X 8 times = 4 minutes

I would recommend doing this sequence 4 times with 1 minutes rest between. In total that is 19 minutes. You can of course perform these intervals on the standard bike, treadmill, rower, cross trainer or whatever you prefer in the gym, but I will list up some more exciting variations:

Picture 1- Push up (Starting position)

• Burpes

• Pushups (Picture 1)

• Spidermans

• Frogjumps

• Mountain climbers (hold on a bench)


• Explosive squats

Picture 2- Medicine ball slams

• Dumbbell swings (kettlebells)

• Medicine ball slams (Picture 2)

• “Hopping” walking lunges

• High knees

• Star jumps etc etc etc.


 Basically any movement that gets your heart rate going can be used. You can for example do burpes for the first 4 minutes, then change it to explosive squats for 4 minutes, then do pushups for the next 4 minutes before finishing with 4 minutes of medicine ball slams. You can choose the exercises so they are specific to the sport or you can choose them depending on what you want on the day, your imagination is the only limit. For example when I coached some MMA fighters earlier this year (with Brendan Chaplin) they did tyre flips, tyre slams and clinching as part of their intervals. Don’t forget to do a good warm up for at least 10 minutes before you start to get your heart rate and blood flow going.

I really think people should move away from spending long lasting boring sessions in the gym, when you get so much more out of working harder for shorter periods. I will be honest and say that a few years ago I believed that in order to get fit and lose weight you had to train with low intensity for a long time in order to increase your fitness. I have thankfully become a little bit wiser (maybe not much) since starting University and realised that the harder you work the fitter you get and the more energy you burn, not rocket since, is it? At the same time it is a fact that the body relies on carbohydrates as the main source of energy if the intensity is moderate/high, but as a result of getting fitter our body becomes more effective at utilising fat as energy source. This should be a big motivation to train a bit harder for people who want to lose weight as well as getting fit!

I am aware that this may sound like I don’t think low intensity sessions are important, because I certainly think it has got its place for example as recovery sessions or in easier periods of training. Anyway I will let you get on with your training now, and I can assure you that I have tried the Tabatas intervals and they definitely got my heart pumping! Give it a go and try it yourself:)

What types of interval training do you like the most?

Cheers,

MoTo