AlchemyFit.com

Interval training has become one of the latest training methods to gain popularity in the fitness world. If your not familiar with interval training, it is a form of cardiovascular exercise that alternates periods of high intensity with periods of lower intensity. The most common method of interval training is sprinting. After a five minute warm-up you would sprint for a minute then jog lightly for a minute and repeat that cycle 5-8 times (don’t forget a five minute cool down). The sprint would be considered the high intensity and the light jog would be the low intensity.

How do you know when you are working at a higher intensity? We have a built in mechanism that gauges that for us. It is called our heart rate. Many experienced athletes and fitness enthusiasts can tell when they are pushing themselves intuitively but others should acquire a heart rate monitor. At the end of the article I have listed the top rated monitors available at Amazon.com. The constant change in heart rate is very beneficial for our bodies because of the indirect effect that it has on our EPOC levels. EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. EPOC occurs when the body’s metabolism is elevated for an extended period after exercise.

The intensity of the exercise is directly correlated with EPOC levels. Here’s a good motto to live by in regards to interval training; work harder don’t work longer. When you push your body for those brief but intense spurts it will continue to burn calories after the training session in order to replenish energy supplies. During training, you will have likely depleted all of your muscle glycogen (stored carbohydrates) and your muscles will need energy. The muscles begin to breakdown fat to restore their energy in a process called fat oxidation. We will go into more detail about fat oxidation later next week.

Five of the most popular heart rate monitors and a body fat analyzer to track your results:

If this post has helped you in anyway, please feel free to make a donation to our “Lose Weight, Save A Child” fitness challenge. We are raising money to help those who need it the most. Thank you.