Five Reasons Why You Want to Do Interval Training

We've have all seen it before and been astounded at the physiques of a lot of the Olympic sprinters, gymnasts, boxers and MMA competitors. How do they do it? What's their secret? Well, one of the secrets lies in the types of training they perform on a daily basis and the types of muscle fibers they use. Below are five ways that interval training works to finally see those defined abs.

1. One reason intervals are more effective is that they target the majority of your muscle. During endurance exercise, you use a lot of slow-twitch muscle fibers and too few fast-twitch muscle fibers. It's the fast-twitch muscle fibers that give you firm muscles and fast-tracked results.

2. Interval training burns more overall calories then slow long distance cardio. If you were to perform eight thirty second sprints in your workout you would burn about 200 calories. If you were to run 45min on a treadmill at a decent pace you might burn 400 calories. On the surface most would think that the 45 min cardio session is more effective at burning fat. However, with interval training your metabolism stays elevated for a full day where you end up burning two to three times the overall calories compared to steady state cardio training.

3. If the above information wasn't enough, intervals can also help to reverse the aging process. Fast-twitch fibers are the first to go when we age, largely because neurons stop communicating with them. Research has shown that you can increase neuron firing rates after just one week of training. With more muscles firing, you have more energy for life.

4. Interval Training does not take much time and you see results quickly. With circuit weight training and interval cardio, you can quickly get a workout in under 45 minutes that keep the body burning calories all day long.

5. The fifth reason you want to do interval training is that is works! If you want to get quick results and be on your way to finally seeing those six pack abs then interval training is the way to go. The research proves it as seen below:

• December 2006, Canadian researchers reported that just two weeks of interval training boosted women's ability to burn fat during exercise by 36%.
  • In January 2007, a six-month study was published showing that adding aerobic exercise had no additional effect on body composition, over diet alone.
  • In June of 2007, a twelve-month study was published which had the subjects doing six hours of aerobic exercise per week, training six days a week, for one year. The average weight loss was only three pounds for that one-year period.
  • According to a British study, levels of Human Growth Hormone, which assists in building muscle and burning fat, skyrocketed 530% in subjects after just thirty seconds of sprinting as fast as they could on a stationary bike.
  • Australian fitness researchers had eighteen women perform twenty minutes of interval training on a stationary bike — eight-seconds of sprinting followed by twelve seconds of recovery — throughout the workout, three days a week.

The women lost an average of five-and-a-half pounds over fifteen weeks, without dieting. Similar groups performing forty minutes of moderate cycling, three days a week, actually gained a pound of fat over the same period. Two of the heavier women who did intervals dropped eighteen pounds.

• In a side-by-side comparison, researchers at McMaster University in Ontario measured fitness gains in eight interval exercisers — using twenty to thirty minute cycling workouts that included four to six thirty-second sprints — against eight volunteers who pedaled at a lower intensity for 90 to 120 minutes.

So now with all the research and some great reasons there really is no excuse to be doing cardio training anymore. Now go out and do your sprints!