The New Era of Interval Training

By admin • July 23, 2010

Most of you already know by now that I’m not a fan of “traditional” cardio.

Step aerobics classes have ruined enough knees, Achilles tendons, and hips.

Ellipticals don’t allow you enough hip flexion to avoid developing hips like a crowbar.

Most people don’t need to sit on their fat a**es on bikes, either because most people, well, they sit on their fat a**es enough as it is.

In short, as I’ve noted in the past in my discussions of The Law of Repetitive Motion Part 1 and Part 2, take a small amplitude of motion and repeat it thousands of times and you’re going to wind up with some issues sooner than later. And, to take it a step further, you’re going to get efficient at this motion – and over the course of time, burn fewer calories (especially if you’re doing steady-state cardio and not interval work).

It’s not like I haven’t made suggestions on other stuff to do, either. Try Sprinting for Health, Rethinking Interval Training, or When Things Get Boring, Turn to Cardio Strength Training. I also recently raved about the emphasis Chad Waterbury placed on movement on his great new fat loss program, Body of Fire.

And, if you need one more example, here was a little fun I had with an impromptu conditioning session on Sunday afternoon at Cressey Performance: Alternating Lateral Lunge Walk with Keg paired with Inchworms.

I’d already done some cable woodchops, t-push-ups, face pulls, slideboard, easy sprinting progressions, and medicine ball throws in a circuit format that day (pair up two exercises with low resistance and rotate back and forth without stopping for three minutes). It’s not rocket science because we aren’t building rockets; people just need to move more.