I meant to give at least a couple of these more individualized attention, but I moved this week, and that is always a nightmare (I think it's the top of my "Suckiest Non-Tragic Things" list). Anyway...
- The Great Fitness Experiment: Sugar Busted. I met (online) Charlotte recently when Mark's Daily Apple linked us both up in the same post. She runs a great (and funny!) blog, and her sugar post hits home given my current abstinence experiment. Sounds like we have pretty much the same sugar bug, and she even links me up! Very cool.
- I've written a bunch on Tabata Intervals, but Matt Fitzgerald really sums them up nicely (can't remember who pointed me to this one). Like Charlotte's, Matt's blog just found a prominent home in my aggregator.
- The World's Healthiest 75-Year-Old Man. Three THOUSAND reps?!
Andy Shirley on the Crossfit boards pointed to these fantastic rowing workouts for rugby players with great crossover to all field sports. The Rugby Training Guide (PDF) is the big one. See if these two passages grab you, no matter what your sport:
A rugby player needs to produce a top performance almost every Saturday of the season. They cannot afford to relax their fitness preparation; if they do the game could be lost and the season with it. So how is it possible for players to produce this top performance week in, week out? In truth, it is not. However, by training smart a player will include the correct balance of training, recovery and relaxation, which will enable him to arrive for games in optimal condition.
[snip]
Physiologically, rugby players have to perform intermittent high intensity and low intensity work during phases of play and throughout the game. This demands high levels of anaerobic and aerobic endurance. Phases of play can vary from 10 seconds to over three minutes so conditioning will be geared to cope with the maximum demands. The high-speed modern game demands that players of all positions are capable of producing high power high strength movements in extreme physical situations. Whilst all players will require a highly efficient aerobic component of their fitness to encourage speedy recovery from maximal efforts...
Then there's these bits on "Why Rowing?":
In England's preparation for the World Cup Martin Johnson's injury history meant he only did one session a day on his feet. Most of his aerobic work was done on a Concept 2 rowing machine.
Games players need whole body aerobic fitness, not just individual muscle fitness, to perform. To raise the aerobic fitness level the entire body should be exercised and exercise on the Indoor Rower uses both upper and lower body muscles, therefore recruiting a very large muscle mass.
If the statement that "aerobic fitness underpins the whole performance" is true then it would make sense to follow the training programme of a rower. Rowers are generally recognised as athletes with amongst the greatest aerobic capacity. This is achieved with no risk of injury through impact, as training is weight supported and non-contact. A slightly modified programme currently used by rowers in preparation for their competitions would meet all the physical requirements of ball players.
There are very few training activities than can produce a high intensity upper body workout, involve the strongest muscles in the body, the legs, and raise the heart rate to cause almost immediate fatigue. These are the requirements and demands of a rugby player. They can be achieved by using a Concept 2 rowing machine.
That's all just preamble though. Where the guide shines is in it's programs, and I love that they include benchmarks. Always good to have a target! « via CrossFit Forums »
Lyle McDonald has a thought-provoking piece up titled Pole Vault your way to a Hot Body. Good for me to read this, as I'm always singing the praises of intervals. I'm not giving up my intervals anytime soon, but it's nice to have a little perspective.
[Heads up: Ferruggia's always blunt and occasionally crude, so don't click through if that bothers you.]
I've never made "bulking" my focus in my training, but I though this three-part piece by Jason Ferruggia on "Cardio While Bulking" (part one, two, and three) had quite a bit of useful advice and insight into integrating cardio and intervals into your workouts without injury or overtraining.
Here's one thing that really grabbed me:
If you choose sprinting as your form of interval training you could get hurt; it's an ugly truth that has to be faced. The thing that will lead to even more injuries is following faulty interval protocol advice. Normally it is recommended to do 30-60 second intervals when they are being performed on a stationary bike. A lot of people take these recommendations and apply them to sprinting. This is a huge mistake! Nobody can sprint for 30-60 seconds. Ok, not nobody; but most average people can't do it. World class athletes can sprint for that long, but not everyone else.
He then elaborates, so click through for more (that bit in particular is in part three). Anyway, the reason it grabbed me is because I've always just blindly applied the Tabata protocol to sprinting, without considering that the original studies were done on bikes. Of course, the "as hard as you can" part of my interpretation allows me to "sprint" for 20 seconds at a slower pace then I'd run the 40, for example, but it still kills me.
NSCA's Performance Training Journal quickly summarizes yet another study demonstrating that you get more bang for your buck doing intense intervals rather than traditional endurance training:
The sprint training group performed four to six all out maximal (~700 w) 30 second sprints separated by four minutes of recovery. The traditional endurance training group performed continuous exercise for 90 - 120 minutes at an intensity of 65% of maximal aerobic capacity or a power output of 175 W.
You can click through for the results, but I've already told you which one comes out on top. As a bonus, you don't compromise your speed and power training by eschewing the long slow stuff. And you save time:
When comparing the time commitment of the two protocols the sprint training required 2.5 hours while the traditional endurance training program required 10.5 hours.
A quick Google Scholar search turns up a bunch of similar-looking studies (which I have not read).
I was reading Ross Enamait's post on the recent report that walking won't get you fit, and followed his link to Sports Conditioning by Mark J. Smith, Ph.D., a four-page PDF (seven if you count the citations) nicely summarizing the current thinking on high-intensity training. How's this grab you:
The acknowledgment that the activity did not need to be continuous was a major shift from the initial recommendations of the ACSM. It was even stated, "accumulation of physical activity in intermittent, short bouts is considered an appropriate approach to achieving the activity goal". This concept was validated in another study that demonstrated that three 1-minute bouts of maximal intensity exercise, separated by 1-hour recoveries, constituted 74% of the oxygen uptake of 20 minutes of low- to moderate-intensity exercise.
In what other venue can 15% of the time buy you 74% of the benefit? And would a fourth minute get you to almost 100%?
I hate to steal Dr. Smith's thunder, and I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing, but he concludes:
...the research is extensive in its support for the notion that high-intensity intermittent training should be the predominant method employed by the field and court sport athlete. It has been established that this type of exercise can have an equal or even greater training effect on the cardiovascular system than continuous endurance training, while also increasing the anaerobic capacity. This form of training also produces a more favorable body composition, and better improves the ability of the athlete to tolerate lactate. Research also supports the fact that there are a number of additional benefits resulting from participation in high-intensity training that are not evident with long continuous exercise.
Leave the endurance training for the endurance athletes.
Clarence Bass has another great article up on the benefits of sprint training. Subjects in a relatively recent study reaped significant benefits doing "four to seven "all-out" 30-second sprints on a bicycle ergometer with four-minute rest periods, six times over two weeks". They did not get the peak oxygen uptake or anaerobic work capacity benefits of Tabatas, however:
"Most strikingly," the researchers wrote, "cycle endurance capacity increased by 100% after [sprint interval training]." The time to fatigue cycling at about 80% of VO2max increased on average from 26 minutes to 51 minutes!
If you hate grinding out long cardio sessions, this is a must-read. For example:
"To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that sprint training dramatically improves endurance capacity during a fixed workload test in which the majority of cellular energy is derived from aerobic metabolism," the researchers reported. Impressively, the short period of very intense exercise produced improvements "comparable to or higher than previously reported aerobic-based training studies of similar duration." In other words, about two minutes of very intense exercise (15 minutes over 2 weeks) produced the same or better results than previously shown after two hours a day at about 65% of VO2max, or 20 hours over two weeks.
15 minutes vs. 20 hours. Yow.
The "Tabata Compared" section was of particular interest to me (obviously). Fantastic piece. By all means, click through...
Too busy/lazy to comment, so I'll just tease you with the first three paragraphs of the lead-in to Clarence Bass's interview with Dr. Pat O'Shea:
For two months now we've been challenging the common belief that low intensity, long duration exercise is best for fitness and fat loss. We've shown that very brief and very hard interval training is amazingly effective in developing both aerobic and anaerobic capacity - and far superior for fat loss. (See articles #10 and 11)
Now, it's time to step back and ask where intense intervals fit in the total spectrum of fitness training. What's best for endurance athletes? Bodybuilders? Older athletes? For total conditioning?
Who better to go to for a broader perspective on interval training than Patrick J. O'Shea, Ed.D, Professor Emeritus of exercise and sports science at Oregon State University? Not only has Pat been a student of sports physiology for four decades, he has excelled as an Olympic and power lifter, a cyclist, a mountain climber, a skier and a coach.
I just came across this polished-looking piece on Tabata Intervals titled Guerilla Cardio (PDF). The focus is on fat-burning, but also includes references to many of the training benefits of Tabatas. On the fat-burning front, there's this note:
To prevent overtraining, try to incorporate the program on your weight training "off days." For instance, I train with weights on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and perform my Guerrilla Cardio sessions on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings, before I eat anything. (Studies show cardiovascular exercise performed first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, burns up to three times more fat than the same amount of exercise performed later in the afternoon!)
Scientists are divided on this idea. Tom Venuto covers it well. Personally, the idea of tackling something as punishing as Tabata sprints upon waking, on an empty stomach, is unappealing, to say the least.
Speaking of sprints, they are the Tabata exercise of choice as outlined by Guerilla Cardio:
Now, while Guerrilla Cardio can be applied to all sorts of activities—the stationary bike, stairstepper, etc.—I would highly recommend you stick to sprinting for a couple of reasons . . .
First, all else being equal, sprinting elicits a significantly higher peak oxygen consumption (VO2 peak) than do other modes of cardiovascular exercise, according to researchers from the University of Missouri, Columbia, who recently compared treadmill sprinting to high-intensity exercise on a stationary skier, shuffle skier, stairstepper, stationary bike and rower. This is important because this new research shows the closer you come to your VO2 peak while exercising, the more fat you'll burn once that exercise session is over.
Second, sprinting is tough. In fact, it's so tough, many people actually fear doing it, which is exactly why I recommend it. (Remember, if you move away from what you fear, you get weaker. But, when you move toward what you fear, you get stronger!)
Leaving the focus on fat loss aside, and having applied quite a few different exercises to the Tabata protocol, there's no question in my mind that sprinting is the toughest, lung-wise, and by a wide margin, in many cases.
(Burpees are the closest contender, and while I personally feel like they take the title for whole-body muscle fatigue, lactic burn from head-to-toe, etc., I don't think they hit the lungs quite as hard as sprints. But that may be because my burpee technique limits my repetition ceiling, whereas sprints don't have a comparable personal limitation.)
Something about the holidays brought lots of interesting stuff across my desk. Or maybe it's coincidence. In either case, here's the trove from the last few days:
Jim at Beast Skills has updated his beginner guide to handstand pushups, and has also added a new intermediate guide and a new freestanding handstand pushup guide. Great stuff, as usual.
Art De Vany on Diabetes, Alzheimer's, and obesity. He concludes:
If this isn't enough to convince you of the need to return to the simple, low-glycemic foods of our ancestors and to work out and stay lean, then you aren't getting your new year off to a promising start.
Crossfit just made The New York Times: "Getting Fit, Even if it Kills You". Coincidentally, Crossfit linked up this great PDF, "Sports Conditioning (a comparison: moderate-intensity continuous activity and high-intensity intermittent activity)" by Mark J. Smith: Some money quotes:
It is also accepted that low- to moderate-intensity activities are useful in recovering from high-intensity exercise and is a necessity in some sports that require repetitive practice to acquire skill. However, while the contention is not that low- to moderate-intensity continuous exercise can improve cardiovascular conditioning and weight loss, the need for significant quantities of this type of training for the field and court sport athlete is indeed challenged.
...and:
It has been demonstrated that low-intensity, long-duration exercise results in a greater total fat oxidation than moderate-intensity exercise of similar caloric expenditure15. However, when endurance training is compared to high-intensity intermittent training, the findings differ. The effect of a 20-week endurance-training program (mean estimated energy cost - 120.4 MJ) upon body fatness and muscle metabolism was compared to a 15-week high-intensity intermittent-training program (mean estimated energy cost - 57.9 MJ)16. Despite the lower energy cost of the high-intensity program, it induced a more pronounced reduction in subcutaneous fat compared with the endurance program. When corrected for the energy cost of training, the reduction induced by the high-intensity program was nine-fold greater than the endurance program.
...and (out-of-context disclaimer attached, however - you really should read the whole thing):
The acknowledgment that the activity did not need to be continuous was a major shift from the initial recommendations of the ACSM. It was even stated, "accumulation of physical activity in intermittent, short bouts is considered an appropriate approach to achieving the activity goal". This concept was validated in another study that demonstrated that three 1-minute bouts of maximal intensity exercise, separated by 1-hour recoveries, constituted 74% of the oxygen uptake of 20 minutes of low- to moderate-intensity exercise.
Three minutes gets you 74% of the benefit (in terms of oxygen uptake) of 20 minutes. Yow.
Finally, Fitness Blueprints is my latest blog subscription.
I've updated my article Timers for Tabata Intervals (formerly titled "Timex Watches for Tabata Interval Timing") to include a review of the Gymboss workout timer. Short version? It's fantastic.
A reader writes:
I plan on trying Tabata Intervals with the college team that I coach this year. I am curious about something though. Have you read anything suggesting that short rest between high intensity reps will cause a conversion of fast twitch muscle fibers to slow twitch muscle fibers? I didn't see anything in the material you cite that discusses what kind of muscle fibers the Tabata Intervals favor. I have read that adequate rest is required between reps to devellop fast twitch muscle fibers. Check out:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark26.htm
I'd be interested in your thoughts on the subject.
My lame, non-response:
I couldn't find anything that specifically addressed Tabata intervals and muscle fiber recruitment. I'd be curious to know if you found anything. Based on the article you site, it sounds like throwing in a "speed day" where you train strictly for speed (short bursts, long rests) might mix in well with the Tabatas. But I have no idea.
Another consideration would be the type of training you want to do for Ultimate. While it is true that blazing speed is a huge advantage, you don't want to train for that at the expense of endurance. Along those lines, I did find this article comparing the Tabata interval with another that does 30 seconds work followed by 4 minutes rest:
http://www.cbass.com/Sprintendurance.htm
I just tried a minor Tabata interval tweak:
First I set up the pull-up bar and then warmed up on my NordicTrack. For the first set, I cranked as hard as humanly possible on the NT for 20 seconds. I know you're supposed to go that hard whenever you do these, but this set really needs to be super-hard, like it's the only 20 seconds you're going to do, and you're going for the world record. Take note of how many calories you burn in that 20 seconds (so yeah, you'll need a machine with some kind of monitor for this flavor of Tabata interval). Now, during your 10 seconds of "rest" go immediately to the pull-up bar and do as many as you can, keeping count. You now have two numbers. Calories burned and pull-ups pulled. For your remaining Tabata sets, continue to go as hard as you can, but instead of doing them for time, do them for work. So in the second set, you stay on the machine until you've burned the same number of calories as in your first set, then you hop on the pull-up bar until you've done the same number of pull-ups as in your first set. Repeat for a total of eight to ten sets (four to five minutes of total work). Race against the clock, trying to stay within the time constraints defined by straight Tabata intervals. Do not dawdle as you transition from machine to bar and back.
The NT is slightly limiting in terms of how hard you can crank, so doing pull-ups during the "rest" really ups the intensity to a level I hadn't experienced doing unadulterated Tabatas on that machine.
I recently described Tabata intervals in detail. I'm going to recommend timers for timing these intervals, but let me recap how the intervals work real quick-like. First, pick an exercise or a cardio machine (these are particularly brutal on rowing machines). After you're warmed up, go 20 seconds as hard as you can, then 10 seconds as slow as you want (or stop, if you're doing something that doesn't lend itself to slow-paced recovery, like burpees). Repeat that eight times. The resulting four minutes is a Tabata set of intervals. So:
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
20 sec. as hard as you can, 10 sec. rest
Done. I guarantee, 20 seconds has never felt so long, 10 seconds never so short, and four minutes never so painful.
But given how wrecked you're going to feel at about 90 seconds in (just tried these with sprints today - ouch), who wants to be counting "one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand..." in your head as you pray for 20 seconds to end? Happily, the good folks at Gymboss make an inexpensive timer expressly for this purpose. Mine came in the mail after just a couple days, and it's perfect. It's twenty bucks, is about the size of a small pager, has just three buttons and is very simple to set up, and is configurable to just about any workout via these options:
- You can set it to countdown once, and then repeat each time you press a button, or set it to automatically repeat without pressing anything.
- You can set a single interval to repeat, or dual intervals of different lengths (so you can set a work interval, and a rest interval of a different time).
- Intervals can be set down to the second.
- The alarm can be either a soft beep, a loud beep, a vibration, or any combination of beeping and vibrating.
- The alarm can further be set to go off for one second or ten seconds.
Furthermore, in "repeat" mode the timer will tell you how many intervals you've completed! There's nothing like the right tool for the job, and this is the right tool.
Or, if you want something more general-purpose, some Timex watches are also excellent for timing Tabatas, and they're pretty cheap. I'd link to a specific model, but I got mine at Campmor, and different models keep coming in and out of stock. Here is their full selection. What you're looking for is a watch in the $20 to $30 range, with a "24-hour coundown timer" that does "countdown/stop (CS), countdown/repeat (CR), and countdown/auto-start chrono(CC)." Actually, what we're really interested in is countdown/repeat, but that's how my watch was described, so I think that will get you the same feature. Or you can just try watches in a store. The Timex Ironman watches tend to have this feature, but not always. They are still good ones to start with as you're looking to narrow the field.
When you get your watch, set it to "timer" mode, and then set up a 30-second CR interval. The thing that makes the Timex watch perfect is that it chimes for 10 seconds after each interval ends, but the clock keeps ticking! So this means you rest while the watch is beeping (10 seconds), and crank when the watch is silent (20 seconds). The only thing you have to count is how many work cycles you've done.
(you can also just set the watch to beep every 10 seconds and go for two beeps during the "work" phase, but for me this beep is too quiet, especially if I'm on the rower or jump rope.)
As for comparing the two, the Gymboss has a clip (like on a pager), while the Timex watches have wristbands (obviously). The Timex does everything a watch should do, while the Gymboss just does this one job very, very well. For me, the big things that make the Gymboss better are these:
- The alarm is louder (or you can opt for vibrate mode if you don't want to disturb others in the gym). I just tried a quick test, setting it for one-second loud-beep and vibrate. I clipped it to my belt (wearing jeans) and hopped on the C2 rower. Turned the music on loud enough to hear over the C2's fan. You could feel the vibration, but it was a big faint (might be better through shorts). The beep was clearly audible though. If you like your music louder it might drown out the beep, but you can always increase the beep/vibration to 10 seconds, which I imagine would be hard to ignore. Not sure what that does to battery life though (it takes one AAA).
- It counts elapsed intervals.
- You can set any dual interval times you want, wereas the Timex only fortuitously handles 20s work/10s rest.
I'm keeping my Timex for telling the time, but for exercising it's the Gymboss all the way.
In preparing for the 2005 Ultimate Frisbee season, I made the switch for the first time from predominantly long aerobic training to high intensity interval training (HIIT). Before I get into all the supporting documentation, let me repeat something: last season my workouts were hour-long moderate intensity aerobic sessions. This season my workouts were 20-minute HIIT sessions. When I finally stepped on the field in the spring this season, I was easily two months ahead of where I was the previous season, conditioning-wise. In other words, I cut my workout times by 66%, and was significantly, noticeably more fit as a result.
The workout I adopted was Taku's Interval Training. Taku underscores the point above (he's writing for combat athletes, but it really applies to all athletes except pure endurance athletes, like marathoners):
Hopefully it is starting to sink in that for combat sports, long slow distance training is ineffective. Jogging or running at a steady pace continually for 20-45-60 minutes at a time is really a massive waste of valuable training and conditioning time. To maximize your efficiency while training "Cardio" for combat sports build your routine around high intensity interval training.
You can skip down to "THE PROGRAM" if you don't want to read the science. What it boils down to though is this: once you've worked yourself up to the most intense form of the intervals, you do 15 minutes warm-up, followed by 5 minutes of intense training, followed by 5 minutes cool down. I know that looks impossible, but you are reading that right: the hard part of the workout is only five minutes long. This is exactly the routine I substituted for 60-minutes of lower-intensity aerobic work, with much better results.
I have since found many more articles detailing this form of HIIT. Phase 3 that Taku describes is a Tabata Interval, named after the study by Izumi Tabata that compared it to a different interval. I haven't found the study itself online, but Peak Performance has a compelling summary:
On a different day the subjects performed two different kinds of interval workout. The first session (I1) comprised bouts of 20 seconds with 10 seconds rest at an intensity equivalent to 170% of their VO2max. The subjects performed six or seven bouts each until reaching exhaustion, ie, they could no longer continue at the prescribed intensity. The second session (I2) comprised bouts of 30 seconds with two minutes rest at an intensity of 200% of their VO2max. The subjects managed four or five of these bouts. [snip]
The conclusion from these findings seems to be that the I1 workout, the 20-second bouts with 10 secs recovery at 170% VO2max, is a better training stimulus for aerobic and anaerobic systems than the I2 workout of 30-second bouts with two mins recovery at 200% VO2max. In support of this, Tabata et al found that a six-week regime of I1 resulted in a 13 per cent improvement in VO2max.
The results of this research by Tabata et al clearly show that two different intervals workouts have different demands and therefore training effects. I1, with 20-second bouts with 10 secs rest at 170% VO2max places the aerobic and anaerobic systems at peak stress. Therefore it would be a fine session for improving both aerobic and anaerobic capacity. Events where both aerobic and anaerobic demands are high are, for example, 400m, 800m and 1500m running, sprint cycling, canoeing, rowing and speed skating. This kind of workout would be great for these sports. Games players may also want to use the I1 workout as an intense training method for improving aerobic and anaerobic fitness.
The benefits described above are from just one Tabata set (20 seconds all-out work followed by 10 seconds rest, repeated 8-10 times). The gang at Crossfit string multiple Tabata sets together in a workout titled Tabata This. Ross Enamait, in his fantastic book The Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness also advocates stringing together Tabata sets. There are many exercises that lend themselves to the Tabata treatment: sprints, jump rope, squats, pushups, burpees (killer), chinnies, etc. There's no end to the ways you can torture yourself with Tabatas.
The one good thing about all that aerobic training was that it laid a pretty good foundation upon which I could build this more intense work. You would not want to undertake Tabatas or any other HIIT without a solid conditioning base. As is true for everything I write here—but particularly for stuff like this that might make your heart explode—consult a doctor before embarking on new fitness regimes.
The Netflix Workout carried me a little ways, but it wasn't far enough. Starting at the beginning of 2005 I completely overhauled my training approach, and that overhaul is now fodder for this weblog. Here were my revelations (which I'm sure are old hat to anyone who's already fit):
- You can only get more flexible and stave off injury if you make stretching a priority. Do it every day, and not just as a half-assed workout warmup. I now take a break from work to stretch, making it an entirely separate activity from my workout proper.
- You have to train for strength in addition to training for endurance.
- Intervals and high intensity training are king. Long duration aerobic training is for marathoners, not team sports and power athletes. Shorter, more intense workouts will still boost your endurance, but without sacrificing speed and power.
You can check out the links to the right to see how I came to many of these ideas (none of which are original, that's for sure).
I have to admit, I was quite skeptical that intense interval training would get me the same endurance benefits (within the context of Ultimate Frisbee) as my hour-long aerobic sessions in front of The Sopranos. But the bottom line is this: I cut my workout time in half, and was easily two months ahead of schedule, conditioning-wise, from the previous season. I was amazed. Shorter workouts, better results. Oh, and I dropped the rest of the forty pounds, bringing me roughly back to my college weight.
Best of all, after many months of forcing myself to exercise, I'm finally happy to exercise for its own sake (and that's despite my workouts being intense and varied enough that watching TV at the same time is out of the question).
Okay, that's enough groundwork. Time to start blogging for real.
