Great Article on How to Get the Most Out of Interval Training

Written by Greg Mac of intervaltraining.net

The whole point of this exercise is to exhaust your muscle glycogen stores held in your large muscle groups. You do this when you operate in an anaerobic state, when your body can’t supply oxygen and fuel to the muscle fast enough through the blood supply so you burn your intramuscular reserves.
You know this is happening when a few things start happening to your body.

• Firstly your muscle start to ache and burn and send messages to your brain begging you to stop,
• you also get hot as all the heat from the energy is released out of your skin.
• You also are taking enormous whale breathes trying to get enough oxygen into your blood to supply your muscles.

You have spent the last few workouts only hitting this state at the end of the sprint. Things are now going to change, as we move from aerobic intervals into anaerobic HIIT (High Intensity Interval training).
You now are going to start bringing that burning feeling forward by five to ten seconds every workout, so for example your next interval training workout will hit that burning zone about eight to ten seconds before the sprint has ended.
The next workout you will aim at bringing this to about fifteen seconds before you end the sprint. You will carry on bringing this burn forward until you reach the point where the goal of the sprint is to reach this burn as fast possible from the start.
Its from this point that the magic will begin. And this is where you start to lose belly fat…
So this changes the sprints for a 30 second spin, to a 30 second ultra endurance event.
Your goal is to last the full 30 second sprint in that burning zone. It will be hard to do this, i suggest focusing your mind completely on every sprint you do.

How can i get to the burning point that fast?

If you are doing physical sprinting it will be quite easy to get to this state fast, however if you are using anything where resistance is optional, like a stationery bike, you may have found it a lot easier to leave the resistance down and go as fast as possible. This will no longer be the case.
The key to getting the most out of your interval training workouts is combining power, speed and large muscle groups. You can get this by first turning up the resistance so its high and tough to pedal…and then you sprint. Both of these combined will get you to an anaerobic zone very quickly.
So from this point on, when you start your high intensity training, turn up the resistance, get into that burning zone, grit your teeth and last as long as you can till your 30 seconds sprint is over.