Interval Training

With all the fuss about dry January, thirty day challenges and exercising every day to try and burn off all the extra festive season wobbles now behind us, I thought it would be appropriate timing to write a blog post on how to keep up the training and get the most out of it with a busy schedule .. .

So what is the best way to burn fat, loose weight and generally improve your fitness if you don’t have time to exercise every day?

The answer is some form of interval training and weight training prioritising large compound movements. I will discuss weight training in another blog post.

So what exactly is interval training you may ask? Interval training consists of short bursts of high intensity exercise involving pushing your body through an anaerobic state for a short period of time followed by active recovery and repeating this for a number of rounds. Getting that heart rate as high as you can then bringing it back down – then up again and down again – again and again and again until you can’t physically go any longer! You can do interval training by running, cycling, swimming or even just by running up and downstairs!

The benefits are endless. You will become leaner by improving your body’s ability to burn fat, your metabolism will improve, you will become more powerful in other exercise you may do and the best thing about it is you only really need to do it three times a week to see results.  If you are a runner, doing intervals 2-3 times a week is beneficial as it will help you become faster and lighter on your feet!

It is all about maximum effort followed by recovery which brings me to one of my favourite places to train in London… Ride Republic! The classes go for 45 minutes and are based around interval training. Their Burn 45 signature class is a high intensity class suited to everyone and anyone! You will end up red in the face, dripping in sweat and out of breath and probably before the class is up but so will everyone else, so don’t worry about that! If you find you struggle with getting your backside to the gym, then these classes are really great and I can guarantee you will probably get more out of them than your average gym class. The team at Ride Republic are all so lovely that you cannot help but feel motivated and before you know it the class is up and there is an end reward (or motivation in my case!)  –  their smoothies are truly drool worthy!  So what are you waiting for, there is no harm in giving it a go! Lx