Intuitive Interval Training Challenge

Sep 29, 2012 by Tatianna

HIIT

Hello My Lovies,

Today I have something completely new for you, we’ve never done this type of intervals before, the name that I gave to this type of training is ” Intuitive Interval Training“. This approach will help you precisely measure your progress each time you train. The best part about this style of intervals is that everyone will get to work at their own pace, at their own intervals, while measuring your progress interval by interval instead of an over all time. Another thing that I really love about this method, it makes you push harder.

It might sound a little complicated at first, but it’s actually quite easy once you understand the idea.

Intuitive Interval Training Explanation

The idea is to test your cardiovascular strength, so we will mainly work with exercises that we can do fast but in good form, you can use strength exercises as well or you can only do sprints such as running, high knees, low jacks, jump lunges , drop down push-offs etc.

For example: Pick an exercise, in the video I picked 3 twist jumps and a drop down push off ( that was 1 rep ), set the amounts of reps you want to challenge your self for, I picked 50 for this exercise. Your goal is to complete all 50 reps in as little quantities of intervals as possible, and to stop as much as possible, as well as recover as fast as possible.

You will time every single interval using your Gymboss timer stopwatch function, you will repeat the exercise until you hit failure. Then stop your timer, write down your reps, and the interval it took you to complete it. Now, reset your timer and time your recovery period. You should recover until you feel like you can push for a while again, your goal is to shorten the recovery process over time, and to lessen the amounts of intervals it took you to complete all the set out reps.

If you are using this method for Running, this is what you will do:

You will give your self a goal of let’s say 5 miles ( that’s just an example ), and your goal would be to finish the whole 5 miles in as little quantities of intervals as possible, where each interval is very close to the other in time. This way, you will always work at your own pace, measuring your own progress each time precisely.

Here is my Interval Time for 3 Twisted Jumps & Drop Down Push-off ( the whole combo is 1 rep ):

I completed 50 reps in 5 intervals total ( make sure you never sacrifice good form ) :

1st Interval – 1: 23 – 12 reps ( I hit failure after 12 reps ) ( rest 17 seconds )
2nd Interval – 1:23 – 10 reps ( rest 27 seconds )
3rd Interval – 1:07 – 8 reps ( rest 34 seconds )
4th Interval – 57 sec – 9 reps ( rest 41 seconds )
5th Interval – 1:20 – 11 reps

You only stop when you hit failure. Next time my goal is to finish this challenge with only 4 intervals, the time after that hopeful 3. Try out this challenge, I’ve been testing this for several weeks now and I really love it, it’s new and it’s fun!

Here is the video, I first went over the explanations, then you can watch me do the actual challenge: