Interval Workouts – What Are They and Why Are They Good?
Interval training is a type of exercise wherein you go from a high intensity to a low intensity workout and take brief periods of rest in between. Those periods of rest can be in the form of a lower intensity activity. For example, you can go from jogging vigorously for several minutes to walking around for several minutes. It is a way of training that takes you from high intensity to low intensity in a short period of time.
This is similar in kind to anaerobic exercising. Anaerobic exercise uses highly intense activity to promote strength, power, and agility in its users.
The main goal for interval workouts is to improve speed. When you improve speed, you improve power, agility, and certainly stamina. These types of interval workouts are typically performed by runners and swimmers to increase their cardiovascular performance.
There are several benefits to interval workouts:
Efficiency and Effectiveness
One of the biggest benefits is that interval workouts promote cardiovascular fitness in an athlete. Interval training provides the athlete with the opportunity to exercise or perform better for longer periods of time in varying degrees of intensity.
Fat Busters
Studies are beginning to show that utilizing interval workouts increases your body’s ability to burn fat long after you have stopped exercising. This type of workout is essential to boosting your metabolism. And we all know what happens when we boost our metabolism; we are able to burn calories for longer.
It seems to be that interval workouts do not allow the body to produce enough oxygen while working out. In some way, this affects your body’s ability to rev up your metabolism long after the interval workout has stopped.
Lactate Threshold
There is also something known as a lactate threshold when it comes to interval workouts. The build-up of lactic acid in the blood stream is a factor in utilizing interval workouts. When the body can momentarily rise above its lactate threshold during intense bouts of activity, this can be advantageous to an athlete. When lactate is removed instead of stored in the bloodstream, it will therefore not build up.
This can then increase performance, strength, power, and agility in, for example, a runner that has to go a long distance.
An interval workout is always best performed with the help and guidance of a professional and with the advice of a physician. Since the heart has to work hard for these high intensity workouts, professional advice and a physical exam are always recommended – just as in any other type of exercise regimen you may wish to consider.
Interval workouts are showing results in many ways such as burning more fat, improving performance, and duration of a workout.
These are some of the benefits of an interval workout.