Charles and I have been watching the Olympics avidly, as it’s provided a welcome and unexpected outlet for the violent anti-Canadian sentiment that we hadn’t even realized was building up inside us, poisoning our hearts and minds. They think they’re so great. Or at least, they think they’re okay, but will resolve to try harder. Those bastards.
The Olympics come with various apocryphal stories, most having to do with athletes overcoming personal adversity. But Charles also heard a good one about the South Korean speed skating team’s training regimen. Supposedly they’re in the habit of doing interval training where they sprint for 40 seconds, then walk for 20, then repeat the cycle seven more times. Charles said he’d tried it and it was a surprisingly exhausting way to spend 8 minutes.
I can back that up. When I was done with my first attempt, I could swear I tasted blood. I kept walking around the track for what seemed like forever, afraid to let my heart rate drop to the level it desperately wanted to. Eventually I was fine, though I felt like I had completely exfoliated the inside of my lungs. Man, was it exhausting. And I was cheating, using 30 second rests!
Perhaps your cardiovascular system is not as pathetic as my own (I hope not; these lungs have proven to be serious underperformers). Either way, this is worth a try. And as a bonus, it produces an unusually bumpy and cool-looking heart rate graph, captured courtesy of the neat Garmin monitoring doohickey that Emily bought for me a year ago (that first peak is from me climbing up the six floors to the YMCA’s indoor track).
It is called Tabata training, http://ezinearticles.com/?Tabata-Anything—Four-Minutes-of-Pain-to-Gain&id=348486, and it is awesome.
Interesting. Only 20 seconds, huh? Well, the 40 seemed worthwhile.
Kind of reminds me of Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty training methodology (which I’ve read about but never tried). I suspect that’s less legit that Tabata, though, since all those bodybuilders were getting really confused about what worked during the early days of widespread substance abuse.
I’m pretty sure this would make my heart explode.
I did 6×2 minutes of 125% of my threshold (1 hour sustainable) power on the bike with 4 minutes of rest the other day. by #4 i wanted to stop. by #5 i wanted to cry. by #6 i wanted to die, and i think i was just about there.
I think in general it’s just supposed to be a 2:1 ratio of high intensity to low. After trying both this morning, I think for runs the 40/20 was more effective, though 16 cycles of 20/10 would be fun to try. If you “liked” the style, there’s a silly Crossfit workout (silly describing Crossfit, not the workout) that I’d also recommend called Tabata Something Else.
Thanks for reminding me about tabatas — I’d completely forgotten about them.