How to get it up for the sprint bits of your interval workout

May 20, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

The fat blasting effects of an minimalistic interval workout still boggle my mind.

See, not terribly long ago, I injured my foot jogging (my wifey cardio) and had to take to the bike (my reluctantly acquired side chick). I loathed it, which motivated me to see just how long I needed to be on there before the body magic happened. That was around the time that I learned how a short stretch of cardio (interspersed with intense intervals) can land you the same effects as a longer jog at a moderate velocity. And, even though I’ve personally started to see the proof of this in the past couple’ve months, it’s still difficult for me to believe how such a swift stint on the spin machine (or doing any kinda cardio, for that matter) could have the same effects as my near-hour workout I’ve been doing. It almost seems too good to be true. But all I have to do is balls-out push myself for micro increments of time during whatever workout I choose (versus jogging at plod pace or Face-tagramming on the recumbent bike at 10 RPMs) and – boom. I’m raking in the win – in, like, a third of the time.

Now, you might be asking the actor inquiry right about now.

“What’s my motivation?”

And, no, I don’t mean the visual inspo of Gisele Bundchen’s buns on your fridge.

We all wanna get schmexy already. And we all already know that’s not enough. What I mean , rather, is: what do you do when you’re prepping to enter next-level limb wiggling and get that speed up – for whatever exercise it is you’re doing? Let’s say you’re on the bike (like I was) and are already bored halfway through the warmup (like I am every time). What do you do to psyche yourself out for an insanely paced interval that’ll get you the most caloric bang for your bike-buck? Well, getting it up for the main event – the all-out-edness bit – is a common prob for those’ve us with a serious case of machine enmity.

But, no worries. I’m the same way whenever I hit the spin seat. And what do I do to survive? Well, first: I get a good breathing rhythm going. In through the nose, out – smoothly – through the mouth. Second, I put my brain in my legs. I’m suddenly sensory filtering so my full attention’s only on my muscles tasked with getting the RPMs up. And then, speaking of RPM’s – finally – I make that number my sole focus on the stat-ometer for the next minute straight. I say I wanna get it up to 120 or 130 and will my pins to pump out those results with every passing second.

Then, fourth (and finally), I pop some ear Viagra and let the auditory arousal help me reach that cardio climax I’m looking for. For example, the toppers on my current, effective (albeit eclectic playlist) are a hybrid of heartbeat raisers. And I prefer to employ ’em whenever I’m pressed for time – but trying to bang out a good ten minutes, power up style. I start with a bit o’ Way Out West (Mindcircus) for a warmup, delve into some Deftones (Headup) and some EDM (Dragonette’s “Hello”), and add in a little Weezer somewhere in the middle (duh, take your pick – it’s all fantastic). And, all the while, I let the melodic vibes be my guide. When I know a song with a supercharged beat’s on deck, I get ready to go into super-cycle mode. While my aim’s to last the length of the song, I tell myself I’ll settle for a minute if I can’t. Then I’ll do a two minute cool down to the rest of that tune plus half another slightly slower song, before switching to another quick paced ditty for my next round of H.A.M.-ery.

(Here’s just a quick Cliff’s Notes style sampler that doesn’t do the real deal justice. Click to enjoy.)

So, my advice to inspire your interval workout and rock it full throttle?

Get your head in your stems (or arms too, if you’re swimming, I suppose), find a focus for the fast bits of your sprint or spin, and get a good mix of songs you can both go cardio-cray and cruise to. Then, when you begin burning out and the numbers and music and mind/body connectch all start to snowball into sensory overload – let that backup motivator kick in to bring you back and help you dig deep.

And what would that be?

Reminding yourself that, counter-intuitive though it seems, the short run’s gonna serve you in the long run.

But only if you serve up some serious sweat while you’re doing it.