Interval Training for Beginners

Interval training for beginners provides benefits to any healthy person such as improving fitness, health, speed and stamina; however it’s a very demanding type of activity and certainly not one you would want to fly into without adequate preparation. If you fit into one of the criteria listed below please check through the precautionary article before starting any workout.

Click here if you are injured, severely unfit or have a medical condition.

How fast is fast?

Ok, for interval training for beginners starting out, let’s discuss intensity. Intensity is measured on a scale from 1 to 10.
1 is pretty much standing still, 5 is a light jog and 10’s running as if a lion was chasing you for dinner.

A lot of the exercises, especially the HIIT routines on this web site ask for the athlete to give it everything on the high points. If you are interval training for beginners, going from sitting on a sofa for ten years to all of sudden belting it like you made the 100 meter Olympic final may not be the best thing for your body, hold yourself back a little; perhaps aim at getting to an 8.5 for your first few excursions. This will let your body ease into pace of an interval sprint.

Also “All out” or 10 on the scale is a relative term. To Asafa Powell all out means going faster than any human being has in the history of time, to us it may mean walking as fast as we can until we start losing our breath. It just means going as intensely as we can.

So be kind to your body and learn to distinguish what it feels like between pushing it hard and pushing it over its limit.
 

15 minutes is easy…

Now let’s chat about sets, particularly HIIT sets. In interval training for beginners when doing something like HIIT for the first time, 15 minutes can feel longer than a year.

When I first started HIIT I ignored all the above advice and went at it harder than a hammer. After I did my second sprint my legs and chest were on fire, apart from that I felt dizzy and was gulping for air, there was just no way I was ever going to complete the whole workout… but I tried…

By the time I got to 8 sprints it was more like a slow crawl. Old grannies with walkers were asking me to scoot over. It was a pointless exercise. Interval training is all about intensity not endurance. If you haven’t got the juice yet to make a full workout, do what you can do now with intensity, then hit the showers. When you come through the next week try adding two more sets. You will gradually build up to the whole workout.
 

Where do I start?

If you are starting off with an HIIT interval training for beginners routine, the best workout is the “Lose Your Belly Fat Fast” Interval workout. It builds from a beginners HIIT workout with 6 sets and lots of rest to the Standard HIIT routine with 15 sets and a lot less rest in a period of 8 weeks. This program will get into interval shape in no time, and make some incredible changes to your body while you get there.

Is warming up really necessary?

Last but not least, unless you want shatter your body into a million pieces; please warm up before doing these intervals. The warm ups bring blood and energy into the muscles, the muscles realize they are being called on and prime themselves for doing work. A warm up consists of about 5 minutes of light jogging with a brief increase in speed now and then to see how your body feels about it. It is also an excellent idea to do a few stretches after your warm up. Do not stretch cold; you will just pull a muscle.

In interval training for beginners the cool down is also important. It starts your recovery off on the right foot. Spend 5 minutes in a light jog winding down your body from the intervals.