If you don't have variety in your program, you are more than likely to end
up at a fat loss plateau soon rather than later. Variety is one of the keys to keeping
that fat loss coming.
So not only should you have variety within your training week (i.e. alternate between
two different interval training workouts, rather than just doing the same interval
workout each time), but you should also change these workouts every 4 weeks.
So you need to change your training program every 4 weeks. To modify your interval
training workouts, you can…
- switch exercise methods (and even use bodyweight exercises for intervals)
- increase or decrease the length of the interval (while decreasing or increasing
the intensity, respectively)
- increase or decrease the number of intervals per workout
- increase or decrease the rest time between intervals
First, let's take a look at the interval methods. Here is my list of preferred
ways to do your intervals, ranked in order from best to worst, based on my experiences…
- Sprinting outdoors (and hills might be the absolute best)
- Strongman movements (Farmer's walks, tire flips, car pushing)
- Bodyweight interval circuits
- Treadmill running
- Stationary cycle (upright preferred)
- Stairclimber
- Rower
- Swimming (only works for competent swimmers)
- Elliptical & Crosstrainer machines
Okay, so how long should you do intervals and how the heck do you do bodyweight
exercises as interval training?
First, I stand by what I said in Part 1. There does not seem to be a "best"
interval training program. But that is good because it allows us to use variety
in our approach. (So perhaps the best interval training method is simply the one
that changes every 4 weeks.)
Interval recommendations have ranged from 15 seconds (from Muscle Media waaaay back
in the late 90's), to 5 minutes (these are known as aerobic intervals). So
let's take a look at each interval recommendation and all those in between.
15 seconds
The great thing about 15 second intervals is that you'll be able to work at
a very high rate (almost near your maximum power output), as long as you get adequate
recovery between work intervals. The downside is that it is very difficult to do
15 second intervals on machines, because it takes a long time to "build up"
and "bring down" the machine settings to the correct speed.