I really haven’t done much interval training since I played football, and then I thought it was just a practice drill meant to mimic the speed of the game. Lately, quite a bit about how interval training can;
1) Help improve your overall speeds in your distance runs
2) And can burn off a bunch of excess body fat.

The downside is……I still haven’t found the downside.

I found an easy to use interval routine in the Men’s Health 2009 Training Guide. They recommend doing this three times a week, either after your weight work out or on your off days. It’s a really good routine, but one you definitely don’t want to do before you lift weights. You will be tired!

Another cool thing about this is that it is all time based, so you can do this while you run, ride a stationary bike, or on a rowing machine.

1) Warm up for 3-5 minutes at a pace of 30%-40% of best time.
2) Then go 95% of your best effort for 30 seconds
3) “Active Rest” back to warm up speed for 90 seconds
4) Repeat steps 2 and 3 for 5-7 times.
5) If you can complete 8 intervals, then reduce your rest periods by 5-10 seconds until the rest period is only 30 seconds long.

So, its about 24 minutes of intervals, 5 minutes of warm up, 29 minutes total. Fast and effective.