Hey there!  How are you doing this beautiful friday?!  Lots of amazing plans for the weekend I imagine?  I’m shooting my 3rd wedding in 3 weeks tomorrow, which really excites me about next years wedding season, which should be starting to book up in the next few months!

So i’ve been working on revamping my training and exercise recently, in order to keep things fresh for my body.  Our bodies are amazing, in that, the more you do of a certain motion or task, the more our bodies adapt to it, and become more efficient at it.  Which is amazing for making things easier for us to do after repetition, but isn’t very helpful when we’re trying to strengthen and lean down our bodies.

Enter…Interval training!  More-so for cardio, interval training continually challenges your body, by allowing short resting periods between maximum output motions.  There are several ways to take advantage of this amazing tactic, here are my 3 favourites;

1. Hills

Running hills is an amazing way to incorporate the interval training ideology.  Creating greater strength and endurance in your legs and lungs than running on flat land, and you can also get an incredible workout, within the distance of a block or two…depending on how hard you wanna push yourself  Find a quiet street or hill that you can sprint up, and walk down.  Make sure that when sprinting up, you push yourself as hard and even harder than you think you can, right to the top, and then focus on recovery as you walk back down to the bottom!  Very fun, and effective!

2. Intervals on the Elliptical

I really enjoy the elliptical machine.  For one, you can use it rain or shine, (or snow lol), you can burn a lot of calories with a very low impact motion, and you can incorporate intervals.  Most machines I’ve used, have an interval program option.  Just make sure that you focus on quick recovery, and calming your heart rate during the easier setting, and then give it your all during the high intensity setting.  It’s only for a minute or two at a time, so leave it all on the machine, because the harder you push, the better the results you’ll see…and the faster you’ll see them!

3. Fartlek

When I was quite a bit younger, there was a girl in my Ukrainian dance group that had a shirt which read, “fartlek”, and on the back read, “you wouldn’t understand, it’s a running thing.”  Boy was that true.  I had no idea what it meant, until about a year ago.  I realized that it was a method of interval training that I had never tried.  Fartlek is a Swedish term which means, “speed play”.  The basis behind this, is that while you run, you vary your levels of intensity.  From a nice easy jog pace, to a continual acceleration of speed until you reach your maximum velocity.  I started by jogging for about 90 seconds to 2 minutes, and then slowly accelerating to my maximum speed over about 30 seconds.  The only thing I found was, that by checking my watch, or counting in my head, I didn’t enjoy the experience as much.  So I created these guided fartlek mp3′s for myself, that talk you through the exercise, and play pump you up music, so that you can focus on the physicality of it, rather than the timing of it.  I will be making them available for free download soon!

So give intervals a try.   It’s really entertaining, in that you’re continuously changing your running pace, there by, ensuring that your body doesn’t get “used” to a certain pace, and is always burning the maximum amount of calories.  Thanks for reading, and please let me know how your interval training is going!

For your viewing pleasure, here is an inspirational video made by Cloudninecreative, about an NHL prospect named Tyler McNeely.  This video shows the intensity and the level of what it takes to be a pro athelete…this guy is nuts!  Very inspiring!!

NHL Prospects: Tyler McNeely from Cloud Nine Creative on Vimeo.