Whether you’re doing track intervals or boot-camp plyometrics, training at a high speed or intensity has numerous benefits, including elevating your metabolic rate, improving your ability to transition from burning fat to burning carbs during workouts, boosting your anaerobic function, improving your insulin sensitivity and blood-sugar stability, enhancing your mood and cognition, increasing your VO₂ max, and improving your cardiovascular health.
“When you do interval training, this causes your heart wall to get thicker so your heart can literally pump harder,” says Mike Thomson, CSCS, Life Time coach and endurance athlete.
You don’t need to be in your prime to set speed or intensity goals. Challenge yourself with a cardiovascular activity that allows you to safely and confidently work at your maximum effort.
“Let’s say I’ve got a 69-year-old athlete who cannot run because it hurts his knees,” says Thomson. “Well, what can he do? He can still get on the air bike and do a 20-minute time trial.”
For the following ideas, first find your baseline and then use it to set goals relevant to your current fitness level.
Sample Goals:
- Improve your mile or 800-meter run time.
- Improve your mile walking pace on an inclined treadmill.
- Increase your distance covered in a 20-minute air-bike time trial.
- Improve your 2K row time.
- Improve your 25- or 50-meter freestyle-swim time.
Your Next Fitness Adventure
Whether you’re looking to break out of a workout rut or pursue a new goal, you’ll find expert insights and inspiration in “What’s Your Next Fitness Adventure?,” from which this article was excerpted.
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