Infinite Intensity

For years I have been an advocate of high intensity training. It's the way that I train myself and my more advanced clients. For me, the benefits of shot burst, highly intense exercises are so obvious that I don't know why everyone doesn't train this way. This style of training is hardly new, for decades serious athletes have been using it to improve performance. It's seems that in recent years others have began to benefit from this style of training and the phenomena has caught on.

In general, low intensity exercises work your heart rate at around 60 percent of your maximum heart rate. A high intensity exercise works your heart rate at around 75 percent or more of your maximum heart rate. You can determine your maximum heart rate by taking your current age from 220. Don't let the term "maximum heart rate" fool or scare you. It isn't referred to as such because it's the maximum rate your heart can beat before damage occurs; it's simply the absolute maximum rate your heart will beat. The 220-age formula is only an estimate and, depending on your individual physiology, you may find yourself exceeding that number.

High intensity training is just more beneficial for your overall health. Besides burning more calories, these exercises increase muscle mass, help increase bone density, improve the heart function, increase endurance, and not to mention save time.

A 2005 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that after just two weeks of interval training, six of eight college-age men and women doubled their endurance, or the amount of time they could ride a bicycle at moderate intensity before exhaustion.

After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent, said Jason L. Talanian, the lead author of the study and an exercise scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles — improved by 13 percent.

It didn't matter how fit the subjects were before. Borderline sedentary subjects and the college athletes had similar increases in fitness and fat burning. “Even when interval training was added on top of other exercise they were doing, they still saw a significant improvement,” Mr. Talanian said.

There is no single accepted formula for hard work, moderate exercise, and rest. The guideline that I follow is to keep the high-intensity phase long and strenuous with the recovery periods short.(not allowing the pulse rate to return to normal) Also, I always suggest warming up before starting the training. For example, before interval training I generally have my clients run a mile.

The evidence is there, high intensity exercise will burn more calories, increase endurance, build muscle, increase bone density, the list goes on. So really, there is no reason to not begin a high intensity routine and rep greater benefits in less time. Thanks for your ear and keep reading!