More Fitness in Less Time

Interval training can supercharge your workout

A Change of Pace—Interval training works with walking and running (shown below by Kathy Fones of Macungie, a mentor with First Strides®) and with other exercises like cycling (shown above by exercise physiologist Eric Witzel and Regan Nicholas of Bethlehem). Witzel and his colleagues can help supercharge your workout at the new Healthy You Fitness Center at Lehigh Valley Hospital—Muhlenberg.

It’s easy to get sidelined by reasons not to exercise. Fitness training is hard, time-consuming, repetitive and slow to produce results. But if you use a technique known as interval training, you can turn these assumptions on their heads. Interval workouts are mostly easy, vary constantly and can boost your fitness dramatically in a short time.

Athletes have long used interval training to improve performance, and research suggests the technique has powerful benefits for average exercisers as well. “You go all-out for just a short period, followed by a longer period at a less intense pace,” says exercise specialist Erin Kisling of Lehigh Valley Health Network. For example, you might walk for four minutes, race-walk or run for 30 seconds, then walk again for four minutes before repeating the sequence.

Research shows that such simple change-ups improve endurance, burn more fat and boost energy better than exercising at a single, moderate pace for an extended period. Another advantage: “Intervals are great if I’m pressed for time, because the fast sections speed my workout,” says Amy Steigerwalt, D.O., a family medicine physician with the hospital. In regular walks through Allentown’s Trexler Park, she uses landmarks such as a bridge, a big tree and a log cabin to stop and start her jogging intervals.

Ready to try the interval technique? See the sample workout below.

A Sample Interval Program

• Warm up by strolling for 5-10 minutes.
• Increase to a moderate pace for 2 minutes. Your breathing should deepen, but you should still be able to carry on a normal conversation.
• Rev it up by either walking faster or running for 20-30 seconds. This is your first high-intensity interval.
• Slow back down to moderate for 2 minutes, or as long as it takes for breathing and heart rate to return to preinterval levels.
• Do another fast interval.
• Keep alternating moderate with fast pace until you’ve done five intervals (about 20 minutes total). That’s for beginners.
  If you’re moderately active, you can boost the goal to eight intervals (32 minutes total).
  If you’re very fit, you can boost it to 10 intervals (40 minutes total).
• Cool down by strolling for 5-10 minutes.

Total workout time: 30 (beginner)-50 (advanced) minutes. If you’re not accustomed to exercise, rest a day or two between interval workouts to let your body recover— but feel free to do less strenuous activity like easy walking on your days off.

Want to Know More? For more information on First Strides® call 610-402-CARE.

Published from Healthy You Magazine, March-April 2008

This page last updated 6/9/09 12:51 PM