Why Most OCR & Hybrid Athletes Do Intervals Wrong
Mike Deibler 
Interval Training is an important piece to any OCR or hybrid training program but most do it wrong. Learn the secret to better HIIT training
A solid running program is needed to any OCR or Hybrid Training program. Interval training is a must for these types of plans.
While most are familiar with what interval training is, many still are doing it wrong and missing out on the benefit from these amazing workouts.
I will assume you understand the idea of interval training, but just a quick recap. Interval training involves alternating between bursts of high intensity effort followed by a rest or low intensity effort.
We don't have to search very far to see countless research studies on the benefits on this style of training.
There are different types of interval training workouts you can do. Many are familiar with HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training, but there is also low and moderate intensity intervals as well. All are great workouts and serve different purposes.
The key is understanding why interval training is so powerful and how you can reap the benefits from it.
The mistake most will make when performing intervals, is not understanding the most important piece which is work output.
The reason intervals get such good results, specifically when we talk about high intensity intervals, is because of the work output performed. When doing higher intensity intervals, we hit intensities that we cannot maintain for too long. When we stress the body to this level, it leads to substantial adaptations. The results lead to faster running and better conditioning.
But here is the key. You have to hit sufficient work out put consistently. When you don't understand this idea, you will make one of two mistakes. You either don't push hard enough and never hit high enough intensity to get the results you are expecting or you go out too hard and can't maintain it over multiple intervals.
This means we have to have a way of measuring output during our hard bursts. We can use things like heart rate, pacing, or distance covered. These will just depend on logistically what makes sense for you and the type of intervals you are performing.
Let's use an easy example of running a hill sprint. Let's say we want to do 10 hill sprints for our interval workout. The sprint should take us 1 minute to get to the top. This is when we are running at a hard effort.
So in our first example, we do the hill sprints but we take 2 minutes to get to the top. While there is still benefit we receive from running up the hill, we aren't hitting the necessary work output.
Or in our second example, we do the first sprint in 30 seconds, the next in 1 minute, then 2 minutes, 3 minutes, etc.
We are looking for the sweet spot in our intervals. We want a hard effort that will push the intensity and then enough recovery to do a similar work output each round.
Of course we will notice a slight drop in performance from round to round, but it gets to a point where we probably want to call it. We aren't hitting those high intensities (although they still feel hard) that we need to reap the benefits from the workout.
So the goal of our workout is to make sure we hit the top of the hill in around 1 minute. Once we see a drop of 10-15% in performance, it might be best to end the workout. That gives us something to build on. Maybe the goal was 10 but this time we only did 7. Next time we got through 8 and we continued to see improvements.
This is the secret to high intensity interval training. Know what output you should be doing and make sure you maintain it. Sometimes you need more recovery between rounds. Sometimes you just aren't ready for that many round and have to build out.
But when you take this approach you start to see better improvements with less chances of injuring yourself from being too fatigued.
If you are interested in trying this plus other running workouts to see your training take off, check out my free gift the 5 Essential Running Workouts All OCR/Hybrid Athletes Should Be Doing.
To get this checklist free just click the link below to download:
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Categories: : Running
