<p>Good lord. I can’t imagine walking on a treadmill all day…</p>
<p>So, here’s an interval training approach that may be particulary useful for running and exercise biking. It was developed by the Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology:</p>
<p>[Cardiac</a> Exercise Research Group - NTNU](<a href=“http://www.ntnu.edu/cerg]Cardiac”>Cardiac Exercise Research Group - NTNU)</p>
<p>It seems to be very popular in European and soccer circles and is pretty simple. </p>
<p>**1. Ten minute Warm up</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Four rounds of 4 minute intervals (85% to 95% max heart rate) alternating with 3 minutes rest (slow jog or walk, 60% of max heart rate)</p></li>
<li><p>Five minute Cool down**</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s an authentic Norwegian exercise researcher explaining it on YouTube:</p>
<p>[4x4</a> Interval Training - YouTube](<a href=“4x4 Interval Training - YouTube”>4x4 Interval Training - YouTube)</p>
<p>I’ll have to try this on the Airdyne. Four minutes at any kind of accelerated pace will be tough on the Airdyne. The longest I’ve done are 90 second intervals and my legs were on fire.</p>
<p>I’d have to do a pretty slow jog (like stuck in quicksand slow) to go 4 minutes. I’d probably have to head over to the local high school track as there is no 4 minute stretch on my usual route that wouldn’t put me running up steep quarter mile hills, which is a bit more than the ol’ (formerly) fat guy can handle! But, ya’ll treadmill warriors might want to have some fun with this one!</p>
<p>There was a well-known Los Angeles judge who had a stand-up desk at which he did all his work. I can’t fathom it – for me being on a very slow treadmill would be a lot easier than standing all day. Not sure why standing is harder than walking, but for me it really is.</p>
<p>Of course, the treadmill desk might just be a line extension from the folks who brought you: <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1321812778&sr=8-5[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Wheelmate-Laptop-Steering-Wheel-Desk/dp/B000IZGIA8/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1321812778&sr=8-5</a></p>
<p>Probably the only product whose user reviews would make a fine bathroom book!</p>
<p>One of the aspects of running (at least for me) that decreases the interest in intervals is the self-competitive nature of runners where there are two main goals - run faster and run longer and those are my usual competing motivations. It is hard enough working on those two things, usually interleaved, without thinking about another variable.</p>
ararab:
OMG, the reviews of the steering wheel desk are hilarious. No wonder, it has over 500 positive reviews:
My knee is still iffy, so instead of running, we are going to focus on exercising our yardworking muscles. The neighbor’s trees have deposited a bunch of maple leaves all over our yard, but this is their last dump of the season. Some of these leaves are a foot in diameter! :eek:
<p>BC:</p>
<p>I think the idea behind stuff like these 4 x 4 intervals is to increase your ability to run faster farther. This particular approach was developed for Norwegian cross country ski racers who improved their cardio capacity quickly using 4 x 4s, despite being obviously fit from an endurance standpoint already. </p>
<p>[Training</a> & Technique: Cross Country Skiing at xcskiworld.com](<a href=“http://www.xcskiworld.com/training/Racing_Advanced/distance_no.htm]Training”>http://www.xcskiworld.com/training/Racing_Advanced/distance_no.htm)</p>
<p>It’s popular with pro soccer teams, with incline treadmills being the prefered torture implement, just because it’s so hard for a very fit professional athlete to get the heart rate up to 95% of max running on the flat.</p>
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<p>Just increase speed. I guarantee you that they will get to 95% of max running 3-minute miles.</p>
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</p>
<p>For very fit athletes, that’s basically what these intervals are. Not 3 minute miles, but close to mile-run pace. Specifically, the idea is to hit VO2max and sustain that level for a couple more minutes during each of the 4-minute intervals. That results in a 95% heart rate. For a very fit endurance runner, these intervals would apparently be done at approximately their 3000 meter race pace. Then, slow down for three minutes to bring the heart rate back down, and do it again.</p>
<p>The beauty of using heart rate to gauge the max (95%) and minimum (60%) is that you can use that to scale the workout up or down to suit any fitness level.</p>
<p>Not that it would be an issue for me, but I guess the problem for athletes doing these on a treadmill is that they run into a practical limit on speed, which is somewhere around 6 minute/mile pace, if that. So they need the incline.</p>
4 minute intervals seems reeeeaaallly long, but I am going to give it a shot, especially since cross country ski season is almost here, between the treadmill, rowing and ski erg machines I have, it would put them to good use.
yeah, not going to be a problem for me.
Just did a quick dance cardio class today. Substitute instructor, so class was just kind of meh.
<p>The higher end treadmills let you run about 5:00 mile pace. My former coach/CEO broke a couple at the club. </p>
<p>I’ve done a lot of interval training over the years. For marathon training we did things ranging from 6-12 400s, 4-6 800s, built up to 10 x 1 mile (we failed at this, by the way), and the worst was 3 x 2 miles. All this was on the track. It was pretty intense. The recoveries varied. We would start with a 400 between the 400s, but it would go down to a 200. I think we usually had a 400 between the 800s and maybe an 800 down to 400 between the miles. We were younger, I should add.</p>
<p>At this point, I use my 5Ks as speedwork. My hills help, too. I’m pretty afraid of the track because it is a good path to injury for me.</p>
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</p>
<p>4 minutes seems super-long for me. The strength coach for the Seattle Sounders MLS team who was describing this approach with his team said that they tend to do 3 minute intervals. But, in either case, the key is to not start the intervals like a rabbit, but to take a good 2 minutes to build the heart rate up, and maybe a pace that won’t hit 95% of max on the first interval, but will on the subsequent intervals.</p>
<p>I do think that these long intervals are geared toward endurance athletes – distance runners, cross country ski racers – and high aerobic capacity sports like soccer, maybe tennis.</p>
I’ve done near 10 MPH on treadmills before. At my weight, you feel like you’re going to break the thing. Smaller indoor tracks (usually about 1/8th mile) are brutal on your knees in the turns and you have to slow down and speed up. 1/4 mile tracks are definitely easier but you still have to handle the curves.
No workouts for me today - spent several hours at work trying to catch up on too many things breaking at the same time. I did manage to almost clean out the local Sports Authority of a particular brand of tennis balls. They have a $25 off $100 purchase coupon so I bought 8 4-packs of balls (these are US Open brand which go for $13/can as opposed to $10/can for typical balls but we can get about four to five sets instead of two to three sets out of them inside).
They gave me two more coupons at the checkout: another $25 off $100 on Thanksgiving and a smaller coupon, $10 off $50 I think. They were having sales on long-sleeve Nike running stuff and long pants too but nothing caught my eye. I’ll just keep wearing the XL stuff until I feel like buying the smaller stuff.
<p>Ok, a bunch of us have been doing this hip activation warmup exercise to good effect. Turns out that it’s from a complely new warmup circuit that Boyle has his guys doing. This one is interesting because it it’s seven exercises, each designed to activate muscles before a workout and improve performance on the FMS test. The FMS is a simple seven-exercise test designed to find out if someone has limitations that need work or would even prevent them from doing particular types of exericises:</p>
<p>[The</a> Functional Movement Screen - PDF](<a href=“http://www.advanced-fitness-concepts.com/fms.pdf]The”>http://www.advanced-fitness-concepts.com/fms.pdf)
[The</a> Functional Movement Screen - Videos](<a href=“http://www.athletic-evolution.com/ae-fit/functional-movement-screen/]The”>http://www.athletic-evolution.com/ae-fit/functional-movement-screen/)</p>
<p>So, Boyle has taken each of the seven basic movements in this FMS and come up with a warm-up exercise. Do this at the start of every workout. Most of them are pretty simple. Click the links for short YouTube videos:</p>
<p>Rotational Stability test</p>
<p>This is the one we’ve been doing:</p>
<p>[Quadruped</a> Bent Leg Hip Ext on Elbows](<a href=“Quadruped Hip Extension on Elbows - YouTube”>Quadruped Hip Extension on Elbows - YouTube)</p>
<p>Active Straight Leg Raise test</p>
<p>This could be done with any resistance band or even a rope or belt to hold the up leg.</p>
<p>[Leg</a> Lowers with Band](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Hurdle Step test</p>
<p>If you don’t have Valslides, this could be done in sock feet or on a towel on a wood floor, or with a foot in a slick tupperware on carpet. Or, stop by KMART and pick up a four-pack of imitation Valslides (big oval furniture movers) for $10.99)</p>
<p>[Valslide</a> Hip Flexion](<a href=“Valslide Hip Flexion- FMS Corrective Level 1 for Hurdle Step - YouTube”>Valslide Hip Flexion- FMS Corrective Level 1 for Hurdle Step - YouTube)</p>
<p>Shoulder Mobiity test</p>
<p>[Quadruped</a> T-Spine 1-Arm Rotations](<a href=“Quadruped Extension and Rotation - Thoracic Mobility - YouTube”>Quadruped Extension and Rotation - Thoracic Mobility - YouTube)</p>
<p>Overhead Squat test</p>
<p>[Toe</a> Touch Squat](<a href=“How to Quickly Improve Your Squat. Hip mobility. Nick Tumminello - YouTube”>How to Quickly Improve Your Squat. Hip mobility. Nick Tumminello - YouTube)</p>
<p>In-line Lunge test</p>
<p>[Split</a> Squat](<a href=“Split Squat - YouTube”>Split Squat - YouTube)
[Split</a> Squat](<a href=“Split Squat with Vertical Tibia Emphasis - YouTube”>Split Squat with Vertical Tibia Emphasis - YouTube)</p>
<p>Trunk Stability Push-up test </p>
<p>This one is really hard. I was able to hold it for 30 seconds, but my arms were totally shaking by the halfway mark. So, even a 10 second hold would be a good start. Or, maybe even do it with the the hands elevated on a step or counter.</p>
<p>[Bottom</a> position Push-Up Hold](<a href=“ISO Half Push-Up Hold - YouTube”>ISO Half Push-Up Hold - YouTube)</p>
<p>2.5 hours of yard work. The leaves are piled neatly under the infamous retaining wall waiting for their turn to go into the yard waste bin (it is already full for this week’s pick up). I trimmed the dead flowers off the heath bushes, whacked a good chunk out of the overgrown ivy wall, spreaded some bark, plucked all leaves off the rose bushes to force them into dormancy. The front yard is dressed in its November best for the Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>DH complained that he needed to burn 400 calories (like the yardwork does not burn any?!), “I want to be Speedo-ready for our vacation” :eek: 
OK, that was a lame joke, but we ended up biking/walking uphill for 40 min, followed by some core stuff. I’m really proud that my hubby, who used to slack off, is now keeping me focused on execise. :)</p>
<p>Today’s run: 4 x 400. Had to do the treadmill again. I now understand the term dreadmill, cause I was dreading it today. Due to all the buttons to push and lag time to get up to speed, I only have a vague idea of how long or how fast each segment was, but that’s good enough for today. I may have to break down and get the foot pod for my garmin.</p>
I have the bike sensor attached to the Airdyne. It syncs up to the Garmin in exactly the same way as the foot sensor. If I did any treadmill running and had a Garmin, I’d definitely get the sensor, just to be able to log indoor runs.
I’ve even finally got the bike sensor calibrated so that the distance on the Garmin matches the distance on the Airdyne computer – trial and error to set the proper “wheel size” entered in the watch so the Garmin knows how far it is with each revolution of the wheel (there’s one sensor for the wheel, one for the pedals).
People say that the foot pod sensors aren’t accurate, but I have to say that the one I used with the Nike+ ipod system was just as accurate for distance on my route as the Garmin GPS. Both always give a distance between 3.19 miles and 3.22 miles for the same route.
<p>OK. I’ve now tried all seven of the warmup exercises above, no weights, just bodyweight. They are all fantastic. I haven’t done them in a row yet, but I’m guessing maybe 5 to 7 minutes, start to finish, doing 6 reps of each or 6 reps per side. This is great stuff for geezers.</p>
<p>For kicks and giggles, I’m going to use this as my warmup this week and take a break from the NROL4A warmup that I’ve done 3 days a week every week this year. The only additions I’m making are lateral lunges – to get a side stretch – and probably my little one-leg miniband balance drill and miniband lateral walks. Should be under 10 minutes with any luck.</p>
I definitely want to try those warm up exercises. They look good.
It’s been raining for 2 days straight. I worked the finish line at the Monkey Marathon in a giant muddy puddle. Two runners deliberately slid across the finish line on their stomachs (males, of course). I was SO glad I wasn’t running the thing. It wasn’t cold, but still… I was on my feet for hours, and did my own little 3 1/2 mile run in the hilly park right after the race started. One guy who runs it every year had to start early because he had to get to his daughter’s (older girl) baptism. He started the race- by himself- at 4am in the dark, scary park and finished at 8 just before the “real” race started. There was also an early start for walkers so the finish line people etc didn’t have to be out there forever. The race is limited to 300 participants. Extremely cool event and absolutely my favorite race. I may actually run it again…someday.
So- no run yet today since it was storming this morning. I think a VERY slow, easy run on the dreadmill after work would be just the thing. My quads are sore from the combination of the 10 mile race on Saturday and the hilly short run yesterday.
<p>Did some kettlebells today and then 20 minutes on the elliptical. Work up a good sweat :)</p>
<p>May go back out this evening for another cardio session or maybe some Pilates…</p>