Endurance Intervals
Intro
Endurance intervals or not often fun or sexy but they are super effective! Endurance intervals are a great way to build your overall work capacity, increase your lactate threshold and VO2 max, in addition to this they take very little programming.
What?
This week's workout is a simple block of endurance intervals, these can be done on a bike/ski/rower/air bike or just running, for the workout we will base it on a concept 2 bike/ski/rower
30 min Endurance intervals
2min work
1min rest
(aim for a high relative effort on the working intervals, not a sprint but a hard effort)
Why?
Endurance intervals are used for 2 main reasons, either to build your threshold base (fitness, VO2 max or Lactate threshold) or to improve efficiency on a machine, these intervals are aimed at the former. By working your body at an unsustainable capacity (a pace which you could not hold for prolonged periods of time) and then giving a recovery, you train your body's ability you utilise oxygen (VO2 Max) as well as improve your body's efficiency at clearing lactic acid (lactate threshold), this essentially means you can work harder without getting out of breath or the burning sensation in your muscles.
For endurance intervals you don't really need to break down the workout as much as just think it through, the workout is simple, 2 minutes of work followed by 1 minute of rest. The way you approach the workout and the pacing however will come into it much more.
30 min Endurance intervals
2min work
1min rest
ski/bike/row
(aim for a high relative effort on the working intervals, not a sprint but a hard effort)
The first thing you should note is the workout is going to be 30 minutes long, this is a relatively long time compared to a lot of usual crossfit workouts, you will have to just buckle down and get on with it.
As you are using the same machine for the full duration the stress will be the same across the full workout, the aim is to really feel the burn towards the back end of the 2 minute working interval but also resta and recover ready to go again in the 1 minute of rest
Pacing in this workout may be hard for a beginner or someone that doesn’t do a great deal of work on the concept 2 machines, you should be working at a fairly high relative effort and the work intervals should be hard. If you are really struggling to get any recovery in the resting interval you can try and slow the pace until you are able to survive the 2 minutes.
In this workout there should be no unprogrammed rest, you should work for the full 2 minutes and rest for the full 1 minute, it is easy to set up as a workout on any concept 2 machine.
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
Workout
30 min Endurance intervals
2min work (high relative effort but not to failure)
1min rest
(aim for a high relative effort on the working intervals, not a sprint but a hard effort)
(Use a cardio machine)
