Sprint, Don't Run

Many of us are under the influence of old training techniques. They are hard to break, I have to admit, there are some things that I myself just cannot let go. That is until it is proven to me to be wrong or inferior to another version or type of training. This is the case with aerobic training. Long jogs on the treadmill or road, elliptical machines, aerobic bikes, etc. all have bit the dust in my eyes. The only people that should be training for aerobic endurance are endurance athletes. Or in special cases where you cannot yet perform intense training.

Interval training on the other hand, does require a lot of effort, but only a fraction of the time. This type of training utilizes all of the metabolic pathways. During interval training, you use much of you immediate stored energy (i.e. muscle energy) in short bursts of intensity like sprints or high intensity movements. Immediately following the high intensity burst is a scheduled recovery session (can be anything from complete rest to a light jog). The recovery session gives your body time to pull more energy from it's other stores (i.e. liver). This high intensity/rest schedule is repeated in intervals. Over several intervals your body begins to use its aerobic pathways to store and use more energy (hmmm...sounds like it might be good for endurance athletes too?) Interval training has been proven to yield the same if not better results than aerobic training.

The Gibala Study done in Canada at Mcmaster University, compared aerobic and intervals training methods to see which one resulted in greater VO2max levels (a common measurement of aerobic effort). Amazingly, both methods required the same amount of oxygen utilization. But wait, then why would interval training be better? Well, because it only required about two and a half minutes of total work for the interval training group, while the aerobic training group was at it for 90-120 minutes.

Another study known as the Tabata study actually yielded better results on the side of interval training. Two groups again used two different training methods (interval vs. aerobic), but this time the interval training group actually improved VO2max greater than the aerobic training group.

So moral of this story. Unless you are running in a marathon, don't train like you are. That is unless you enjoy the endless hours on the road or treadmill. Me on the other hand, I am very busy, and I get my conditioning in daily, but only for about 10 minutes at a time.