It’s getting to be that time of the summer where it literally feels like THERE IS NO TIME.  Literally.  For anything.  And the weeks are just flying by like crazy.  All those summer trips, cookouts, and cocktails have added a little extra cushion for the pushin…and not in a good way.  I don’t know about you…but when it gets gross out my energy levels go way down…and doing an hourlong workout sounds like the seventh circle of hell.  What do I turn to when I’m in a midsummer rut?  INTERVALS.

What is interval training anyways?  Interval training is basically doing the same amount of work that you would get out of a longer workout, in a shorter amount of time.  However, the trick to interval training is upping the intensity in your workout.  Instead of doing moderate to hard activity for the entire workout, you add short energy “spurts”, where you up the intensity of the activity you are doing for a couple of minutes, and then recover.  So pretty much you get a break every two minutes AND you burn more calories.  Sound good?

So here’s how it works (30-35 minute workout depending on your activity level/amount of time you take to warmup):

• Warm-up with 5-10 minutes of light-moderate cardio.
• 4 minutes at baseline (what pace you’ll work from).  The baseline should be medium intensity, with your Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE), at a 5.  The RPE is a scale from  1-10 of exertion during exercise, with 1 being “i could do this all day” and 10 being “if I do anymore I will puke my guts out all over the gym floor”.
• 1 minute of “work set” at RPE of 7 or 8 (depending on workout level)
• 2 minutes baseline
• 1 minute work set
• Keep repeating between baseline and work sets five more times.
• 5 minutes COOLDOWN

That’s it!  Now throw on some Lady Gaga, and get your butt in gear!