Work Harder; Not Longer...

Why do 1-2 hours of work, when you can do it in 15-30 mins. If I told you that I could give you something that could help you get more done in less time - would you want it? Yes, yes! give it to me. Well that something is called "interval training". The question now is do you still want it? I may have lost some people. Now I always say speed kills, but in this case, it kills fat.

What I am trying to get you to understand is that running on the treadmill for 1 - 2 hours at a pace that is considered the opposite of working hard, isn't the most of effective use of your time. Most people claim that they do not have ample time to dedicate to daily exercise, so why do I see that same person spending over 1 hour on the elliptical machine at the slow "I am watching TV" pace.

Some signs to look for as clues you need to work harder:

1. If you can actually watch TV on those nice TV screens the gym owners conveniently placed in front of the treadmills.
2. If you can send a text messages to all your friends while on the cardio equipment.
3. If can you actually hold a meaningful conversation while on the cardio equipment.
4. If your smiling while your on the cardio equipment
5. If you maintain camera ready status for your photo shoot while doing your cardio

If you fall into one of those categories about then you need to increase the intensity of your workout. What this will do for you is result in more calories burned in a shorter period of time. "How can this be, that doesn't make sense?" you say.

In this study published by Canadian researcher and sports scientist Martin Giabala compared sprint intervals versus traditional endurance training over a two week period. Within the study the sprint interval group performed 4-6 rounds of 30 second all out sprints with 4 min allow for recovery time between rounds. The endurance training group perform 90-120 minutes of continuous exercise at 65% of VO2max (low intensity). Wow that is about 20 minutes of high intensity intervals compared to a possible 120 minutes of slow endurance work. The results of the study show equivalent improvements. Now this study only looked at performance changes in your aerobic capacity, and not calories burned, fat loss, and or body composition changes. I will share more research studies for those areas in the future, but for now you can see that higher intensity work can lead to the same improvements/results in a faster time.

So if you really want to get fit, you need to work harder, not longer. Most people are looking to spend the least amount of time in the gym as possible. So increasing the intensity of your workout will allow for you more bang for the buck in terms of time spent, and the higher-intensity exercise will surely more than double your calories burned.

Now only issue to consider is that higher intensity exercise isn't recommended for beginners. So start out at lower intensities, but just don't stay there. Once your in better condition higher intensity will allow you get back to your life.

Be Well.

Reference
Journal of Physiology,"Short-Term Sprint Interval versus Traditional Endurance Training: Similar Initial Adaptations in Human Skeletal Muscle and Exercise Performance," Sept 2006, Vol 575 Issue 3