Interval Training rest time.

oeagleo
oeagleo Posts: 70 Member
edited December 4 in Fitness and Exercise
I'm a 68 year old male that has been grossly overweight for most of my life. However about 3 years ago, I began using MFP, and exercise to loose a little over 100 lbs, and now am ready to address my actual "fitness". I have been studying VO2 Max, and it's relationship to fitness, and am ready to give the HIIT, or Interval training a go. I'm looking at what's called "30-30 Training", (30 seconds full out, followed by 30 seconds "rest", I'm doing this on a stationary bike, and am doing 5 "sets" of this as a cardio warmup to my weight training. My question is this, what is a recommended "recovery" time for an endeavor such as this? This is really a lot more difficult than it seems, so I'm wondering if I did this every day, would that be too much, every other day? Twice a week? I usually hit either the gym, the bike trail, or a mall walk 6 days a week. Any ideas?

Replies

  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    I would do it once a week to start. You can add another session in the future.

    I do something like this 2x/wk max, but more often just once. I do 10 minutes total bu I worked up to it.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,463 Member
    I like to do15-20 all out followed by 40-45 normal pace. I think it's more Tabata style
  • canadianlbs
    canadianlbs Posts: 5,199 Member
    congrats on your weight loss, first off. secondly, i only have very intermittent experience with intervals, so more experienced opinions should prevail if you get them. personally, i've had a couple of phases where i was doing them during my bike commutes, and that's about it.

    what i learned when i was reading about them is that high-intensity work depletes muscle glycogen just like lifting can do. once you've used up what you've got, it takes your body a while - like a day or so, iirc - to make more and deliver it to your muscles. so the information i got when i was doing it was that you should only do sprints every other day (this was before i was lifting so idek how that affects things). on the off days i'd just do my regular non-intense cardio type of riding.

    hope it helps.
  • oeagleo
    oeagleo Posts: 70 Member
    edited October 2016
    Okay, thanks for all of the replies! I have an "old people" (silver sneakers) class on Monday, and Silver Sneakers Yoga on Wednesday, so I think I'll probably do the intervals on Tuesday, or maybe Friday, then put a little weight training in there somewhere. I really need to address the VO2 Max issue.. (grin) Good advice, I appreciate the input.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    oeagleo wrote: »
    .....and am doing 5 "sets" of this as a cardio warmup to my weight training. My question is this, what is a recommended "recovery" time for an endeavor such as this?

    So using an interval session as a warm up to resistance training, and doing a HIIT session are very different things. If you're doing it to improve your VO2Max, then you should be so wiped afterwards that a resistance session isn't an option.

    What I would say is that working on your VO2Max isn't really relevant to most people most of the time. It's something that would appear in a race training plan for performance improvement, generally in the middle block in anticipation of an "A Race". For most people aerobic base is far more significant.

    What I'd do as a HIIT session would be a 10-15 minute warm up followed by 6 efforts intervals followed by a 10-15 minute cool down. No more than once a week, given that my other sessions will be a long steady, a tempo and a couple of medium distance easy sessions.


  • oeagleo
    oeagleo Posts: 70 Member
    Perhaps I was using the term HIIT a little too loosely, I know when I did the 30-30 for 5 "reps", I couldn't talk, could barely breathe, etc, but after about 10 minutes, I went and did a light weights workout. The deal is that I've been doing treadmills, ellipticals, etc for a while, and still don't see any improvement in my stamina, or increase in my "polar fitness test", so I wanted to address that. I know that "true" HIIT isn't something I'm going to be able to do, as Zumba gets me pretty good, so I think maybe the term "Light Interval Training" may be closer to the truth. :-)
  • EquineSunshine
    EquineSunshine Posts: 21 Member
    You're on the right track, graduating from steady cardio to more interval training, but you may be going too hard right off the bat. Kinda like the New Years fitness kicks that only last a month because people go all in from the start instead of working up to it.

    I'm in my mid 40's and I used to do just a lot of steady running or cycling like you said you did, then I started learning about strength training and interval training a few years ago. I'm pretty fit now, and I work with a personal trainer and he just has me do intervals or HIIT twice a week, and strength training 3 OTHER days a week. He told me that a HIIT or interval cardio workout is not a good warmup before weight training. Walking 5 minutes or doing dynamic stretching (moving through the stretch as opposed to static stretches where you hold a stretch) or some body weight exercises are better so you don't wear yourself out before the weights. If you have to do both in the same day, the cardio should be last.

    For my intervals, he has me get on the stationary bike at a medium pace/resistance for 2 minutes then crank up the resistance as high as it goes (or as high as I can put it and still turn the pedals) stand up on the pedals and give it everything for 30 seconds, then back to moderate for 2:00. I do this for 20 minutes then cool down 5:00.

    For HIIT I do it Tabata style, doing 3 sets of 3 exercises x2 with 1:00 rest between sets. It will be things like kettle swings, lunge jumps and sandbell slams for 30-45 sec each and 15 sec between X 2 then a minute break then another set of maybe kettle hand-offs, bosu jumps and rainbow slams, then perhaps ropes (dunno the name, but you make those big heavy ropes go in waves) Jack squats (like jumping jacks but you do a wide sumo squat between jumps) and side kicks. That's a really tough workout for me which should take about 25 minutes (doing 45 sec on 15 sec off) but I guess I do more rest in between because it takes me more like 30.

    Remember, I worked up to this level over a few years. The 30 sec on and 30 off is too much. You have to give your body time to recover in between. I think my max HR is close to 170, but I haven't checked in a while. On the bike, I usually hit 160-164 bpm by the end of 30 seconds, but I'm back down to 130 within a minute of slowing down. If you don't already use a CHEST STRAP type HRM you should get one. I love my Polar H7 because it connects to my phone via Bluetooth and it also automatically connects to all the gym cardio equipment so I don't have to use the handgrips to measure. The wrist ones like Fitbit or even my Apple Watch can't measure changes fast enough for interval training like this. You want to get into anaerobic zone during the fast interval but just for a short time, then get down to "weight loss" zone (the next one down from aerobic) for a recovery period before going hard again.
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,178 Member
    oeagleo wrote: »
    Perhaps I was using the term HIIT a little too loosely, I know when I did the 30-30 for 5 "reps", I couldn't talk, could barely breathe, etc, but after about 10 minutes, I went and did a light weights workout. The deal is that I've been doing treadmills, ellipticals, etc for a while, and still don't see any improvement in my stamina, or increase in my "polar fitness test", so I wanted to address that. I know that "true" HIIT isn't something I'm going to be able to do, as Zumba gets me pretty good, so I think maybe the term "Light Interval Training" may be closer to the truth. :-)

    You are not going to build stamina this way. If this is the goal, lower speed and train for duration. E.g. if you want to be able to run a 5k in 30-40 minutes, you start by being able to walk for this duration of time, then increase speed as you build stamina. VO2max and HIIT is not really relevant here. You can add intervals of higher intensity, for the only reason you need slowly build up stamina and speed. So, if in the end you want e.g. to be able to run at a speed of 10k per hour, but currently you have only the stamina for walking 30 minutes, you implement a scheme like 2-3 minutes walk, one minute jog at a comfortable pace like 7-8 k per hour, then increase the run to walk ratio, then increase speed. It is intervals, but in a completely different way, and in no point you should feel out of breath.
  • MeanderingMammal
    MeanderingMammal Posts: 7,866 Member
    oeagleo wrote: »
    ....still don't see any improvement in my stamina, or increase in my "polar fitness test", so I wanted to address that.

    So the material point here is specificity of training. If you want to improve your endurance, or aerobic capacity, then you need to train in a way that supports tat objective. That means working to goals and training in a way that gets you there. Run for 30 minutes, building that up from 60 seconds of running several times in a session to 30 minutes of continuous. Then build up to an hour of running using a similar strategy.

    If you're limiting yourself to using machines rather than training out in the real then the main benefit of intervals is that it's a lot less boring. Machines are dull, very dull...

    Personally, as an endurance runner, I do most of my training as continuous runs at a moderate intensity. So an hour or so at 70% of my maximum heart rate, or 3-4 hours at 60%. The only time I'lldo speedwork that takes me into the 95-100% range is in the middle of a build up towards a goal race. If, for example, I'm doing a 12 week marahton build then I'll do some of those in weeks 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. Essentially it's not worth the expense in terms of the effect on the rest of my training.
  • mgalovic01
    mgalovic01 Posts: 388 Member
    I would definitely recommend a good warm up before HIIT training, and a cool down after. Taking your heart from zero to sixty is quiet a shock. You want to make sure it's ready for it.
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