Get ready to unlock the secrets of interval training with Rob Maxwell, as we strip away the jargon to reveal how it can revolutionize your fitness regimen. Ever wondered about the true difference between HIT and HIIT, or how to tailor those work-to-rest ratios for your personal endurance and power objectives? We've got you covered. Rob expertly navigates the ins and outs of interval training, shedding light on the critical significance of recovery and how it can make or break the intensity of your workouts. This episode is more than just a deep dive—it's a treasure trove of insights for anyone aiming to customize their cardio routine and keep their workouts fresh and challenging.
In an engaging conversation, Rob reveals the transformative impact of interval training on cardiovascular health and why VO2 max isn't just a metric for elite athletes. By honing in on how high-intensity intervals can skyrocket your cardiorespiratory fitness, this episode is a call to action for anyone stuck in the dreaded 'no man's land' of ineffective endurance training. Discover the hormonal harmony that interval training can offer, balancing exertion with recovery to optimize your endocrine system. This isn't just about pushing limits; it's about finding an enjoyable, effective workout balance that sustains long-term success. Join us as Rob Maxwell guides you through the art of interval training in a way that's as informative as it is inspiring.
Get ready to unlock the secrets of interval training with Rob Maxwell, as we strip away the jargon to reveal how it can revolutionize your fitness regimen. Ever wondered about the true difference between HIT and HIIT, or how to tailor those work-to-rest ratios for your personal endurance and power objectives? We've got you covered. Rob expertly navigates the ins and outs of interval training, shedding light on the critical significance of recovery and how it can make or break the intensity of your workouts. This episode is more than just a deep dive—it's a treasure trove of insights for anyone aiming to customize their cardio routine and keep their workouts fresh and challenging.
In an engaging conversation, Rob reveals the transformative impact of interval training on cardiovascular health and why VO2 max isn't just a metric for elite athletes. By honing in on how high-intensity intervals can skyrocket your cardiorespiratory fitness, this episode is a call to action for anyone stuck in the dreaded 'no man's land' of ineffective endurance training. Discover the hormonal harmony that interval training can offer, balancing exertion with recovery to optimize your endocrine system. This isn't just about pushing limits; it's about finding an enjoyable, effective workout balance that sustains long-term success. Join us as Rob Maxwell guides you through the art of interval training in a way that's as informative as it is inspiring.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to. There is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell, I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I'm the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the science so I can explain what works and what doesn't work. Hence the name Method to the Madness.
Speaker 1:
I want to first thank our wonderful sponsors, jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They currently have over 280 five-star reviews on Zillow and let me tell you you want true professionals out there. The real estate market is absolutely changing. I mean, all these industries change, but right now it's going through, you know, quite a little bit of a dip. So you want true professionals that can help you do what you're aiming to do, and for me that's the Gildans. Give them a shout. 386-451-2412.
Speaker 1:
Today I want to talk to you about interval training, interval training in regards to cardiorespiratory exercise. So let's get into talking about that. I think it's really, really important. It comes up all the time, or it comes up often in the exercise world the professionals and the trainees who are trying to figure out the best thing they can do. So interval training comes up a lot. Let me start a little bit with what's in a name, and after this podcast, I just want you to start calling it what it really is, which is interval training.
Speaker 1:
Now, sometimes buzzwords or buzz slogans catch on and they become really hot and popular and, I don't know, they get kind of confused a little bit or they confuse people. So with in regards to interval training, you have two different ones that come around and it's HIT High intensity training is one that gets confused for HIT, h-i-i-t high intensity interval training, hiit high intensity interval training. So HIIT is what a lot of people now use for the slogans of interval training and that's nice and everything. But you know what? Don't worry about that so much. Let's throw that out.
Speaker 1:
I mean, sure we want the interval training to be well, I don't want to do anything super high intensity, because not everybody loves to train. If everybody loved to train, I probably wouldn't have a job. I don't know, maybe you guys would miss me and maybe we wouldn't have some of the problems health related that we have in this country and worldwide. But that's not the case. It is what it is. Some people love to train, some people like to train and some people don't like to train at all and probably some people hate to train. But you know what? I believe everybody should train, and even the people that hate to train, I think, can learn to love interval training. But we have to explain it, and that starts with the name. So throw H-I-I-T out.
Speaker 1:
High Intensity Interval Training, just throw it out. People grab a hold of these buzz slogans and they start throwing it around and most people don't even have a clue. And I'm not talking about trainees. Why should you or they have a clue? I'm talking about some of the influencers out there that throw these terms around a lot. And just to back up a little bit high intensity training HIT was the original that just stood for any form that would push intensity over volume. That could be strength training or cardio. People would say well, I'm more of a HIIT trainer, high intensity trainer, versus volume trainer. So that's the difference. But you know what? Let's throw all that out.
Speaker 1:
Let's talk about interval training. First, you need to know that there's really not a perfect way to interval train. There isn't. There are, like work to rest ratios that maybe we need to consider a little bit, but there's absolutely nothing perfect about it. So, for example, a work-to-rest ratio might be one-to-one and that would be where the hard effort is, say, one minute and the easier effort is one minute. So that is a one-to-one ratio. There is another ratio that is a one to two ratio and that would mean that the hard work effort was one and the recovery or easier work effort was two. So one minute and two minute, three and an even one to four interval effort. For people that are doing pure track and field, like speed, like 100 meters and things like that, they might burst for 10 seconds and then take over a minute to recovery, to recover. So that is like a one to five or one to six. Now some of the endurance athletes will kind of go in the opposite direction and they'll do something like one half to one work to rest ratio. So I'm sorry, it would be one to one half work to rest ratio, so they might do a minute hard and 30 seconds easy.
Speaker 1:
All of that really shouldn't matter that much. It's fine if you want to study it yourself to find out what absolutely works for you and what is the adaptation you're trying to strive for. I mean, there is some belief that if you're trying to improve your endurance that you're going to want to make the work effort longer and recovery effort shorter. And if you want to work on speed or power, it would be the opposite, because you'd want to go more intense and then you would need the recovery to recover. So your work effort would be shorter and your recovery longer.
Speaker 1:
I tend to try to get people not to do too much of that, because what ends up happening is in the opposite direction. I should say I try to get people not to recover too short of a time, because what ends up happening is that the effort into the interval gets kind of cut short because human nature says you know, I'm going to go longer with little recovery and you end up not pushing harder. Having said that, please remember that the studies and I tell you the studies I read them. I'm not like the knower of everything, but you know what I am is somebody who is vastly interested in all of this stuff.
Speaker 1:
So when studies come out regarding interval training, which has always been a hot topic, something that I think is pretty important, I'm going to study it, I'm going to look, I'm going to see if there's any validity to what some of the folks are saying and all of the research I've seen through the years states that there is not a perfect interval out there. There just isn't. Everybody is a little bit different, but here's the beauty of interval training, all right, so we got that out of the way. There's no perfect interval system. As my old mentor, gary Jones, used to say, one is infinitely greater than zero. So if we're doing something that pushes us out of our comfort zone and we're doing more than we used to, we are getting better, and that is the real beauty of interval training, because it gets you to do more work than you probably would have done.
Speaker 1:
So let's look at some of the benefits to interval training. Research shows to improve your VO2 max so improving your cardio respiratory maximum, so really getting in better shape you have to train higher than what your numbers indicate you're currently at. So in other words, if you are trying to boost your VO2 max, you have to spend time near maybe not completely at, but near your VO2 max to improve it. Now a lot of people will say well, you know, I need to also get out and do longer things for endurance as well. That is absolutely true, and that'll help you burn more calories. That'll help you burn more fat. In other words, doing these long, sustained efforts are good for you, but they're not building your cardio respiratory maximum.
Speaker 1:
And the better shape you get in, the higher the intensity you need to train at. And this is all personal meaning you, you, you, not somebody else. The better shape you get in, the harder you have to push yourself. We're all different with that. It's just the way that it is.
Speaker 1:
Some studies show that when people get upwards around 60 to 70 of a VO2 max, which is a really high number they need to train at almost 95% or higher of their VO2 max. To show any more greater influences on their VO2 max. On their VO2 max Doesn't mean they're not getting other benefits of exercise. So that's pretty darn high. On a side note, that's why sometimes it's a little bit laughable when people say, oh, that person's in really good shape, they don't even have to train. The opposite is true. The better shape somebody gets in, the harder, not longer, the harder they need to train at to get benefits. All right, so the biggest benefit you can get from doing interval training is you can push up to that level where you need to be at to get in better shape and then recover. You can push up to that level where you need to be at to get in better shape and then recover. You can push up and recover. You really don't have to stay there that long to get the benefits. That's what's so fascinating about interval training.
Speaker 1:
As a matter of fact, you shouldn't sustain a very long and hard effort. That's one of the worst things you can do outside of not exercising, because really what that does is that takes a toll on your hormonal system, and as we get older, we need to be more careful about that. Right, I think both ladies and gentlemen understand that as we get older, we need to be more cognizant of our hormonal systems. We want to make sure that we're keeping everything in balance, and people that chronically exercise, doing high-end cardio for too long and too hard, because they're either addicted or they're misinformed, are actually doing some damage to their hormonal system Maybe not damage that can't be fixed, but they're definitely doing damage at the time Now okay, when we are at hard efforts, really, whether it's through cardiorespiratory exercise or in the gym.
Speaker 1:
So anything that really gets the heart rate high, gets the lactic acid high, anything like that, is also going to raise your cortisol levels. Now, the good levels that get raised. The things we want raised get raised. Testosterone, human growth hormone, adrenaline just kind of comes with it. It's neither good nor bad. Those things get raised, as does some of the happy hormones like endorphins. They get raised, but the cortisol levels get raised too. So any high efforts, those hormones all get raised. Now if you sustain that let's say you do a heart effort, which people can you can be above 90% of your maximum heart rate and hold that for 30 or more minutes. That is going to elevate those cortisol levels. Your cortisol levels are then going to stay elevated and when we start doing that we really start to impact in a negative way our endocrine system. So we don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:
The beauty of interval training is we raise those hormones we want to raise, like testosterone, like human growth hormone, like endorphins. We raise them and, yes, cortisol as well. But then we recover and everything gets back closer to homeostasis. So we recover. That's what we want. We get closer. We don't get completely to homeostasis until later on in the day, maybe not that much longer, but when we recover. But as we start getting closer to homeostasis the body starts to settle back in a little bit. We begin to recover. We take maybe a minute or two of this recovery or longer. Remember there's no perfect interval and then we go up again and we do another interval. So this style of training gets you the best of both worlds. You get the benefit of raising let's just call them the happy hormones. You raise the happy hormones that we all want for a healthier endocrine system, and then we recover and let the unhappy hormones cortisol get into recovery and then we do it again. That's the biggest benefit you can do with interval training is that you can do with interval training. Is that? Here's another huge perk you don't have to do as much.
Speaker 1:
As a trainer, I have said for years you can go long or you can go hard, but you should never go long and hard. So many people, when they do their cardio, do that. They make that mistake of training in what we call no man's land, like they say, oh, I feel comfortable, I can talk, but they're like a minute or two from their 5k pace. That's not easy. That's going long and hard and that really takes a toll on your endocrine system. Sometimes endurance athletes are so over-trained that they have the effects of somebody who is clinically depressed because their hormonal system is so out of whack when they go on these long, moderately hard runs they're almost destroying their endocrine system. Now, destroying is a little harsh because I don't want anybody to think, if they've been doing that, that they can't recover. They can. They'll have to really really recover though, go into like maybe months of very easy training and then come back the smart way and learn to balance those hormones better.
Speaker 1:
So with interval training we don't have to go as long Like we just don't. There is no study that says, oh, you have to do this much to get benefits. Again, everybody's a little bit different. So if you go out in your walk and you tell yourself you're just going to push yourself for, say, 30 seconds of a run, a jog or a super brisk walk, and you do that maybe three times in the course of your walk or your jog or whatever, you're going to see benefits. And then the next time you do it, maybe a couple days later, you do an additional interval. There's nothing really. There's not a perfect number that you have to reach.
Speaker 1:
I always like the 20 minute interval, say, like the 20 minute interval sessions. I really think we get a ton of benefit from that. But again, there's no perfect duration. So for me, that's what I like to do. In that ballpark I'll warm up and do whatever cardio respiratory exercise I'm doing let's say I'm biking so I'll warm up for about 10 minutes of just easy work and then I'll do 20 minutes worth of intervals and then I'll cool down. That's what I like to do. That's what I think works best, because when we don't over train, we can then train more. That's the beauty of it. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but what I mean by more is in a couple days do it again. If we do super long duration intervals or workouts, our body's going to be so shot we're not going to be able to keep up the frequency.
Speaker 1:
Now, I know I said there's no perfect interval system and there's not, but I just caution you against pushing your recovery too much. It's not necessary. You don't have to rush through your recovery. Personally, rob's telling you he really loves the one to two ratio. So in other words, 30 seconds hard, one minute easy, or one minute hard, two minutes easy. I think it gives you adequate recovery. I know it does To start the recovery process and you actually feel like you're going to push a little bit harder because you know you have some nice recovery coming your way. But there isn't any perfect one. Just know that the research states that. But I really like the one to two ratio and you can do this with any mode of exercise that you like, and personally I recommend to do this two to three times per week, almost like you would strength train, because it is a hard effort.
Speaker 1:
So maybe you do this like three days a week, at least two days a week I shouldn't say at least, because I just told you there's no perfect plan At least one day a week, how's that? So, again, if you're doing something and then you progress to the next thing, that's a great thing. But one to three times a week is a great mode to do it on anything that you want to do, and then the other days just do easier cardio respiratory exercise. You will get more benefits from doing interval training than you will doing other forms of cardiorespiratory exercise. All right, so give it a shot.
Speaker 1:
I hope I cleared some things up. It's great for your cardiovascular system, it is great for your endocrine system and maybe the biggest thing that I kind of like just glossed over because it's so important to me it makes you enjoy the exercise session better. To me, when I know I'm breaking it up like that and I'm not just like, sustaining this long, harder effort of 30 minutes which is kind of like mentally, can be exhausting, like I want to be out there and do it, I think, well, I can go for 30 seconds and then walk. To me it really makes the exercise more enjoyable and I end up doing a lot more quality and sometimes I end up just doing a little bit that I didn't think I was going to do. So interval training has so many perks there isn't more to it.
Speaker 1:
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