Sample Interval Training Workout

I was doing some reading on a few interval training workout studies last week that were conducted by some Australian researchers and experimented with a few options and thought I would give you a sample of what they were so you could give them a try yourself.

The first interval training workout I tried had you go at a high intensity for 24 seconds, and then recover at a lower intensity for 36 seconds.

I first started off with a slow warm up for 3 minutes and then at the 3 minute mark went high for 24 seconds, then slowed down for 36 seconds, then high again for another 24 seconds followed by another low intensity for 36 seconds. I continued doing this until the clock had reached 20 minutes and then did a cooldown for 3 minutes.

It was a good workout and I definitely felt spent when I was done.

I was doing this workout on an upright stationary bike and it might be possible to do this on a treadmill but the bike seemed more practical since you could easily switch between the high intensity and low intensity fairly quickly (by the way, resistance is more important with these when using a bike rather than speed. Try to pick a resistance that you can only pedal between 70-80 RPMs on the high intensity bouts).

A couple of days later, I tried another interval training workout based on what the Australians did where the high intensity is 8 seconds and the low intensity is 12 seconds.

Again, I warmed up for 3 minutes on the upright bike and then started with the intervals after that until the clock said 20 minutes.

This was a good workout but I didn't like the practicality of it.

It takes at least 3-4 seconds to reach the appropriate RPM range so you're really only getting about a 4 second burst.

This workout is completely impractical on a treadmill and even if doing this outside on a track or something seems impractical since again, it's going to take you at least 3-4 seconds to reach your top speed.

Overall it was a good workout but, I just thought the intervals were just a bit too short for practical purposes.

The last interval training workout that I tried was meeting in the middle of the other two: 16 seconds at the high rate, 24 seconds at the lower rate.

I did this on the upright bike again, started out with the 3 minute warm up and then did the intervals until the clock hit 20 minutes.

This one felt harder than the 24-36 intervals and I felt the most spent from this one compared to the other two methods, which kind of surprised me. Again, I'm not sure how practical this would be on a treadmill, but might work if you were doing sprints outside.

For overall fat loss, I dropped quite a bit of weight last week when incorporating these (along with staying in line with my eating) so the fat loss results working with these are pretty impressive.

As I mentioned in a prior interval training post, you can get good results when doing these types of routines without going completely all out. You need to push yourself but you don't necessarily have to go at a rate that you would if someone was chasing you with a knife.

Overall, I would suggest using the 16-24 method and the 24-36 method for a good interval training workout. Give them a shot and let me know what you think.

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