Intervals & Fat Loss Part III

Putting It All Together

The take home message here is not that there is no place for steady state cardio, or that you should only be doing interval training. The best course of action is to use both forms of cardio. An overemphasis on either will result in less than optimal results. If you’re just starting out, I’d caution you from jumping right into an intense interval training workout. Rather, you should spend some time building up a baseline of cardiovascular fitness with steady state cardio. From that point you can start to do some lower intensity intervals. For example, you might walk on the treadmill at 3.0mph for your active recovery and power walk at 4.0mph for your sprints. With time and as your conditioning improves you can gradually up the intensity of your sprints.

As for intermediate and advanced trainees, the only real difference is in their level of cardiovascular conditioning. Intervals are all about perceived effort and as such what is intense to one may not be intense to another. Start out with 30-60″ on time at an RPE of about 7-8; not full out but much higher intensity than steady state.

Beginners
Traditional steady state cardio gradually moving into low intensity interval training

Intermediate
20s on / 60s off x 8-10 repeats
30s on / 90s off x 6-8 repeats
60s on / 180s off x 3-4 repeats

Advanced
30s on / 60s off x 8-10 repeats
60s on / 120s off x 5-6 repeats
60s on / 60s off x 6-8 repeats
90s on / 90s off x 4-5 repeats

SideBar – Intervals and Contest Prep

Interval training is well established as a time-efficient and very effective means of fat loss and this is also true for competitive bodybuilders and figure competitors. Steady state cardio, and lots of it, has been the Holy Grail of contest prep for years. However, there really is no good reason to have to resort to 10-14 hours or more of cardio per week to get in shape. So, can competitors use interval training in their contest prep? Yes, most definitely. However, they should do so while keeping certain things in mind.

One, a competitor of any significant size (ie. big male bodybuilders) should probably not be running, or running much. They should opt for non-impact cardio modalities like the stationary bike. Two, they need to keep in mind that interval training, similar to intense weight training, is a very CNS (Central Nervous System) intensive form of exercise. Short sprint intervals (~ 20s) are more CNS intensive than longer sprint intervals and as such you want to be mindful of how you balance that out with your lower body training. A few key points to consider:

1.Think of interval training as a lower-body workout and as such, be sure to be mindful of just how much lower-body training (volume) you’re doing. Too many interval workouts and too many lower-body workouts is a recipe for muscle and strength loss.

2.Put your interval-training workouts on your heavy lower body days. Why? So that your legs have more complete rest days per week. Doing them on your ‘Off’ or ‘Upper Body’ days gives your legs less recovery time and you run the risk of localized overtraining of your legs.

3.As your bodyfat approaches very lean levels recovery is at a premium. Consider less intensive forms of cardio – longer duration intervals (which by nature are less intense and therefore not as hard on the CNS), more steady state cardio, etc.