Interval Training – Type and Tips

Interval Training – what is it and why should we do it? You may have heard of H.I.I.T. – High Intensity Interval Training. It is a great way to strengthen and challenge the cardiorespiratory system for a myriad of health benefits. However, the fitness world hypes things up to a degree that “everyone must do something because it’s the best!” I’m here to tell you, everything with exercise is relative. As I always say, orthopedic issues take precedence over any goal or so called “best” activity. This is why I invented the Kinesiogram™ – to evaluate someone’s biomechanics and assign custom corrective exercises to make sure the body is mechanically sound for any type of exercise.

So when you’re deciding on what to do, you have to take into account what’s going on with your joint health and soft tissue health. 

In terms of interval training, it’s best to have a solid aerobic base as well. Let’s look at the main component of interval training – the ratio of hard work time to rest or recovery time. Sometimes people think they have got to go two minutes all out and that they can only have 30 seconds of rest and that’s it for it to count. I’m saying, no, that’s not true. You can set up whatever ratio of rest to hard work you want. 

So for beginners, let me give an example on the exercise bicycle for this. Somebody can warm up at level one for 5 minutes and then their first interval can be for 30 seconds at say level four, then they go back to level one for two minutes. Then they do 30 seconds at level four again and they go back to level one for two minutes and they go back and forth for, maybe five rounds. Then a cool down for 5 to 7 minutes would be in order. As someone gets a little bit more acclimated to this, they do six or seven rounds of high and low interval and then cool off. You want to cool down properly to make sure the heart is returning to a normal pace and the vessels that were once dilated are returning to normal.

This is very important for heart health to not just stop suddenly and let blood pool in the legs because the legs have another pump, the muscles, that are pumping blood back up to the heart, and if you suddenly stop from all this really quickly, you might get lightheaded and some other things that are not so great. 

Just to recap – you get to decide what activity you’re doing, and I always recommend beginners start with a simple, repetitive exercise pattern, whether it’s walking, the elliptical, the stair climber, or the bike – just so that you can get used to this idea of doing something at an easy pace and then a harder pace and then back and forth and back and forth. Now there are other types of interval training where there’s other types of exercises with no equipment. 

For example, someone might do one minute of intense jumping jacks, followed by walking for two minutes very calmly and then they’ll do another one minute of another type of jumping exercise or full body movement and then they’ll walk around in a circle again or somewhere for two minutes and cool down. So interval training doesn’t have to be on a piece of equipment or jogging outside or swimming. It can be with body weight exercise or even with weights, and you can choose the intervals you want to do whether it’s one minute of really intense exercise followed by three minutes of recovery and back and forth, it’s up to you.

Another type of H.I.I.T. is, what I call a brand name, Tabata. Tabata was invented by Izumi Tabata. Tabata is going all out with a particular movement for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest and doing that 8 times. It is a total of 4 minutes. But really, how is someone going to determine “going all out” for their body. It’s not very quantifiable as say being at level 6 or 10 on the stationary bike. 

I would not recommend this for beginners for this reason and others. Again, I’m always going to go back to the orthopedic, you have to make sure those joints and connective tissue are primo for that type of intense workout as well as a solid aerobic base. I don’t want anybody finishing their workout feeling like they’re going to throw up or some people have diarrhea after too intense of exercise. It’s a terrible thing and I don’t mean to gross anyone out, but these things happen when somebody is working out too hard for their poor body.

The other type of interval training that I came across was EMOM. EMOM stands for Every Minute On the Minute. That means you start a new exercise at the top of every minute. The first part of this is to set the number of repetitions you have to complete in one minute. An example would be to complete 40 jumping jacks within a minute and if 40 jumping jacks are completed before the minute is up you can use the remainder of the minute to rest. I suggest light moving and not a complete stop because of the blood pooling concept I mentioned earlier. If you want a 30 minute workout, you can pick 30 exercises. So if you do 30 lunge jumps in 40 seconds, you get 20 seconds to move lightly before you start the next exercise on the minute – every minute on the minute.

I think it’s fun. But again, take into consideration your joint health and soft tissue health because with these types of exercises, you must watch your form. I love interval training, but this is a recipe for disaster if that body is just not in alignment and good posture actually doing the exercises. 

If you are not sure what your posture or alignment looks like from a clinical standpoint, sign up for my free webinar to find out how you can. Head over to michelebond.com. There is a sign up button right on the homepage. In the meantime, keep moving!