Comments on: Build Fitness With Mild Interval Training

By: Ilya Olevsky

Ilya Olevsky — Thu, 21 Apr 2005 23:00:17 +0000

When I started interval running about a month ago, I found that an interval of 30 seconds running followed by 2 minutes walking was optimal for me. I did this for 30 minutes. Right now I’m running 40 seconds and walking 1 minute and 50 seconds. The distance is the same though, so my time is now about 27 minutes. The next thing I’ll be doing is reducing walk time by 10 seconds again, and stick with that until I can completely recover in the smaller amount of time. This has so far worked very well for me. I initially read about this technique on runnersworld.com. They have some good articles for beginners: http://www.runnersworld.com/category/0,5034,s6-51-184-0-0,00.html The one I found this out from is “The Run/Walk Plan.”

By: Daniel Ehlke

Daniel Ehlke — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 23:11:52 +0000

I have begun my training two days ago.
I run with no plan the first day, 15 minutes with many interruptions.
Yesterday I tried out run 1 walk 2 and switched to run 1 walk 1 after some minutes, because I thought I can make it. I run and walked 30 minutes total.
But today my legs felt tired the whole day, so I reduced the total time to 20 minutes, still with run 1 walk 1. I think this will be my standard for the next days.
I’ve found out that a great benefit of these “planned” interruptions is that I have to overcome my procrastination of starting to run again every two minutes (this was very hard at first). So this is a good training not only for my muscles, but also for my self-discipline: I don’t have to overcome this procrastination only once a day or once a week, but 10 times within 20 minutes!

By: Sukotto

Sukotto — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:37:42 +0000

I tried the daily training like Steve suggests but found it hard to track my progress. I grew frustrated pretty quickly, started missing days, and eventually discovered that I just wasn’t exercising at all anymore. I little while ago I discovered the exercise portion of John Walker’s Hacker’s Diet. I find the structure quite helpful and want to point others to the book if they have the same problem as I did.

You can find the exercise chapter of his book here

He built on the Canadian armed forces’ exercise program called "Five Basic Exercises" (5BX) which he simplified for his own purposes. The self-paced ladder is suitable for absolute beginners through serious athletes.

From his website

Since exercise seems, on the face of it, so distasteful and the time devoted to it stolen, perforce, from other more pleasant activities, I’ve designed this exercise program around the following goals.

Minimum time per day.
Time spent doesn’t increase as you progress.
Easy to start, regardless of the shape you’re in.
No pain.
Progress at your own pace.
No equipment needed. Exercise anywhere, in private if you like.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 23:52:32 +0000

When I used to race, I would use interval training to build leg speed and get into racing shape. But that was a long time ago. Now I just jog.

By: John Richardson

John Richardson — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 23:23:25 +0000

As an avid sprinter since High School, interval training is the way to go. When running around my neighborhood, I use light poles as reference markers. I start out walking to the first light post and then run to the next, repeat. With your system you could walk 3 light posts, run 1 etc. I like to use the posts as it is a good distance to get your heart rate up without killing you.

I find it takes about 3-4 months of training to where I am able to continously run. Interval training saves the day.