In reference to your comments about the order of long versus short intervals during a weekly training cycle, I would refer you to Tudor Bompa's 1983 book, Theory and Mrthodology of Training: The Key to Athletic Training. He notes that high intensity intervals should preceded indurance (over two minutes) because endurance intervals will inadvertently tax your your high intensity systems which take several days to recover. If you start early in the week with high intensity intervals and proceed to less intense intervals, by the time you get to the endurance intervals later in the week, all that is not worn out is your endurance (oxygen) system.

Another very practical book of his is Periodization of Strength, last know publication date by me was May 1996. Professor Bompa's is (was?) a training and coaching researcher AND Olympic level coach, writing at York University in Toronto, Canada and was published by Veritas Publishing in Toronto. I know that these works are dated, but I haven't seen anything reputable that overturns these very readable and practical works. Another great source for interval training is the seminal and very readable text by Fox and Mathews. It is probably out of print and I only have notes taken from the 1980's when I used it. Even then it was old.

Thanks again for your work and open approach.

Mitch in Albuquerque

I also like how you put your point in with the interviewes responce.

Love to see more of these interviews

But I find the relationship between VO2 and fat loss really interesting. Shall find out more, thank you!

6 min of running(2 min moderate speed/1 min sprinting)
then immediately followed by
10 pullups
5 one arm pushups(each arm) , 15 diamonds
20 barbell high pulls
3 sets with no rest!

hop back on treadmill

6 min of running(same intervals as above)
10 jump squats
10 bulgarian lunges each leg
15 one leg squats each leg

x2 with no rest between exercises or sets( I only do 2 sets of elgs because i put on muscle rather easily on my lower body)

back to treadmill for 6 min of running( same intervals as above)

Total time – 28 minutes.

Effective?

I have people at my gym ask me all the time how I can be in and out of the gym and look the way I do. I use this routine to help prepare me for a fitness competition which I placed 1st in.

All the time I go to the gym and see people working out when I get there…and by the time I am showered up and leaving – the same people are still working out and not looking near as good as I do(not being vain but it's true!)

Maybe short workouts wouldn't work out for me had I not pushed myself in the past. Also I am in my mid 30's and never stopped working out since I left the Army. Although there were times i did take some time off….my body still seemed to remember and was able to come back. My workouts might be shorter but they are alot more intense than what I see at the gym- some girl lifting pink dumbells for an hour followed by waving her arms wildly on the elliptical or treadmill for another hour.

All I know is that I was stuck for awhile at the same 10% BF, so I added some long distance running (8 miles, long for me) once a week and added some sprints here and there and still was trying to do one or the other of squats and deads once a week,alternating every week, while staying on a good diet, and nothing really happened. But about 3 weeks ago I decided to do Hiit 3x a week, alternating sprinting, & body weight routine and bam! I started shedding fat like a sieve. I know I am down at least 8%bf to lower now, I only have a little, tiny, microscopic amount to go, right above my belly button to get rid of that last bit, I am so happy, I'm seeing my obliques cutting back up through my stomach in a pretty clear ridge, its so awesome. The only thing is that I am so tired and I am losing a little bit of strength, but I am backing off after this week and relaxing a bit and start it back over after a week or so of rest. I never knew I would have to be so light in weight to get down to this BF % 6'2" 167lbs (seriously I have no strength in my small legs, my knee keeps me from lifting heavy on anything, oh well Hiit doesnt hurt it tho!)

I am currently going thru the 101 class and every workout (6) has lasted less than 12 minutes. Yes, only 12 minutes but they have kicked my butt; I am always sore the next day. For nutrition they ask you to do the paleo diet. I like it since it is very simple to follow.

Let me give you a few sample workouts from our 101 class:

Workout.-
-200m run
-3 rounds (in order given) of
KB swing @45lbs men/@25lbs women
air squat
crunches (using lumbar support)
*exercises are performed using 21, 12, 9 rep series: KB swing, air squat, crunch (repeat).
-200m run

Workout.-
3 rounds (in order given) of
Standing press @45lbs men/@25lbs women
push-up
200m run
*press & push-up are performed using 21, 12, 9 rep series: press + push-up + run (repeat).

The above workouts are performed with no rest. You simply blast thru it. Both of these workouts are for time. The thing that makes it fun is that you compete against everybody in the room.

This one we did last night.-
6 rounds of
-KB sumo lift @35lbs men/@15lbs women
-burpee

This is how they made us do this one. You go for 30s performing sumo lifts, then you do burpees. Rest for 60s. The total reps per round is the sum of the sumo lifts and burpees.

What have I learned so far? Short and high intensity workouts can be effective and performed in less than 20 minutes. I was skeptical but my experience so far has made me a believer.

Take care,
/AC

When I use to run xcountry in university we often did interval training. We would not walk between intervals but do a slow jog. This was to help increase recovery and vo2 max.

Excellent post as usual. I knew nothing about VO2 max. I find it very interesting that this level of performance is directly linked to Genetic Variation which I talk about all the time.

I also like the fact that once you reach optimal VO2 max, it may be maintained by one exercise of 8 minutes a week.

Really good quality information.

i have a theory with your aproach to cardio, i mean first hitt and after that steady cardio, making it a 30-40 min rutine ,
i know that there is no amunt of exercise to save you from a bad diet, but it can be some slight help.
as you already mentioned ones related with cardio , how come when the fashonable exercise were hours and hours of cardio, you saw lots of skinny people in the gym(in fact in the need of a little muscle, just a little) and now in the post-meathead era, you see lots of non-as-lean-as-they-think-they-are guys, (but dont tell them that, never!!)

anyway
my theory is that a well developed cardio rutine(such as yours) will cut your body fat a little extra, not enough to allow you to eat like a pig but making a difference of 1 or even 2 bodyfat% numbers.
for example, following intermitent fasting in a lets say free spirit(not obsesing on what you eat) can give you a 10% bodyfat by it self and then you only need some straight training to show some muscle, but if you add this kind of cardio you could get to a little lower level, like 9 or 8% and mantain it with a relatively confortable lifestyle

what do you think about my theory?
(by the way, love your idea of this workout, never the same hitt in the week, your body never gets used to it, genius)

Yeah…my dad would be bummed out! He was an English major and studying at Standford the be an English professor before he got sidetracked. I was always more of a math guy…I was even on the math team in Jr. High (read: Geek).

Anyway, I know that I carve the English language at times. I'll try and improve

Thanks,

-Rusty