Weekly Tips for Your Peak Fitness and Wellness

This Week's Tip: Boost Your Fitness Fast with Intervals

If you’re looking to add variety to your exercise routine, scorch calories, and achieve a higher level of fitness--all in less time, then let us introduce you to interval training. It’s the bread ’n butter of many athletic programs, and for good reason. By its name, this type of fitness training consists of interspersing intense bouts, or intervals, of exercise with more moderate intervals, which gets your heart rate up more often than a steady-state workout, but without burning you out.

Sports conditioning drills, with their emphasis on quick stops and starts, are built-in intervals. Fast-moving circuits that have you jogging to various calisthenics stations, which combine the cardio and strength components of a program, are another fun way to interval train. (Come to an Outside In Fitness session and see for yourself!)

Intervals don’t have to be all-out, either; they can be as simple as picking up your pace every few blocks the next time you’re out for a fitness walk. If you like, you can interval train to a certain degree during every workout (although really intense intervals should not be done more than once a week). Or, mix it in with several still-beneficial, moderate-effort sessions throughout the week.