Rachel Ray's 30 minute interval training

For some reason I can never quite muster the energy to go to an "actual" track to do "actual" interval training. However, I've found this bike workout to be pretty amazing as well as easy on the body.

You can do this on a regular cardio bike or an upright.

5 Mins - Low cycle(lvl 3 for me) 80 RPM

Then do 6 sets of the following:

1 Min - Highest Cycle(lvl 12 for me) 100+ RPM
2 Min - Low Cycle(3 for me) 60-80 RPM

Then Cooldown:

2 Mins - Low Cycle(3 for me) 100 RPM
5 Mins - Low Cycle(3 for me) 60-70

This is a great workout.. and seems to improve my quickness off the first step. It requires some explosiveness and then maintaining speed. You can do the same workout on the treadmill but i find the impact hurts my knees. You'd be surprised how hard this workout is. If you have difficulty I find that keeping track of how many people look at you funny during the high speeds helps.

My record is 6 ... Have at it.

Intervals and Exhaustion

I'm going to be out of commission for a couple of weeks, so I probably won't be posting much. You guys will have to pick up the slack...Hah!

Anyway, wanted to make a post before my hiatus. Last week, Fox and I went to the track and did the 5x60/50 intervals. I thought I was going to die. We ran each one as hard as we could, but the last one was no where near as fast as the first. I had to lay down on the track after the last one. I didn't throw up though. When we were done, we had planned on throwing a little bit. Our legs were so tired, it was like we were drunk. Completely uncoordinated. This is how I think you should feel after running these intervals.

When I've done the intervals on the stairmaster, I've set a level (15) for the first one, and then tried to keep it up for the rest (usually failing). If you're going to try and run these on a treadmill or stairmaster, something that sets your speed, then you've got to remember to go all out each rep. So the first one should be as fast as you can go, and the last one should be as fast as you can go, but the last one is not going to be as fast as the first. I've done them on the bike too, and although you can regulate your own speed, I still feel like I'm not getting the workout that I get when running at a track.

So, my suggestion would be to run the intervals at a track (or around a field, whatever), and you should be about to pass out afterwards.

Air Alert Week 12 Recap

Ok, I know, you've had it with the updates. "Finish the stupid thing already," you say. Well, that's my plan. Wednesday of week 12 was killer, with the added squat hops that are par for the Wednesday course, and I got through all but the last 15 leap ups in the last set before I had to pause because my legs simply shut down. The rest of the workout was fine, though, and on Thursday, while not a walk in the park by any means, I completed all the leap ups without pausing. Thursday took me 45 mins to complete, while Monday took about an hour and Wednesday took about an hour and 15 mins.

So, per my last post, as I have completed Day Three of Week 12 without pausing, my legs are going into recovery mode for the sabbatical that is week 13. I plan on going to the gym anyways to play some basketball (which I am TERRIBLE at) so I don't show up not being able to complete week 14, which is the sissiest week of them all. "It's prepping you for week 15!" Right. I'll get to Monday of week 15 not able to even FINISH the first exercise, let alone pause to complete them all. I hope that's not the case. There will definitely be a week 15 recap, and I will warn you ahead of time, there will be some tears.

Air Alert III update

So because every single person in my office has left and I'm the only one here, I will take a few moments to give an update on Air Alert III.

It is hard. Really really hard. I started week 12 yesterday, and for the first time, could not actually complete a set for an exercise without stopping for a few seconds. Four sets of 75 leapups is killer, even coming off of six sets of 50 from the previous week. My feeling is this: if, by the end of the week, I still cannot complete the leapups without pausing in the middle of a set, I am going to repeat week 12 until I can (week 13 is a rest week, so I figure it can only help me prepare for the W15D (Week 15 of Death, which has 4 sets of 100 leapups. yeah.)

A couple of things I've learned from doing this program:

1. Do the program EXACTLY as prescribed
2. Early on, do the exercises as hard as you can (ie, for the burnouts, really do get as high on your toes as you possibly can and really go as fast as you can) because you need this foundation for later on
3. Actually time yourself between sets, because if you just guess your rest, you're either guessing too high or too low most of the time. If no clock is available, I've found that my cellphone comes in handy
4. DO NOT CHEAT. You really are just cheating yourself. No pain really does equal no gain
5. Be active on Air Alert days (usually following the workout) and be even more active on the off days. Really do jump your highest and test your range.
6. Always cool down and stretch afterwards
7. Always massage the muscle you are working on during your rest
8. DO NOT eat Mexican food on the day of or the day prior to performing these exercises, especially in the later weeks.

This program starts somewhat easy. With some of my Emory kids starting out when I'm on week 10 or 11, they are done with the whole routine before I'm even done with the first exercise. However, it takes a lot longer the further in you get. Yesterday took me 45 mins, but the week before took me 1 hr and 15 min (week 11 = fewer reps, more sets, week 12 = more reps, fewer sets). Week 15, which you're supposed to do four days that week, will probably take about an hour and a half or more, and none of these numbers have included warm-up and stretch and cool-down and stretch.

I applaud those of you that make it to week 12, and who can do it without having to rest in the middle of the 3rd and 4th sets of leapups, at least on the first day. I will give a week 15 report, but I'm sure it will go something like, "Wah wah wah my legs hurt wah wah I'll sky you, bitch."

Bad Wood

I can hear Parham (...oops Mrs. Ewald) now, "There's no such thing as bad wood." Perhaps I'm mis-remembering. Anyway, I was bad last week. I worked out and did intervals on Monday, played pickup Tuesday, and then did nothing! It was pathetic.

I had another discussion with Erin C. online the other day (I sure hope Mr. C. isn't reading this). I mentioned that I don't think anyone in Atlanta Ultimate is in danger of overtraining. So, don't worry about taking time off to 'recover'. Laziness is your 'recovery' time.

Plan for this week:
Monday - legs/intervals
Tuesday - pickup/intervals
Wednesday - legs
Thursday - intervals
Friday - med ball/plyos workout

There, I posted it, hopefully I'll actually do it.

Reader Mail

So, not so much mail as instant messaging. This is the internet afterall. Everyone should get google talk. Anyway, reader Erin C. from Atlanta asks (I summarized):

I tend to get tired after a couple of games. I'm interested in the intervals, but wonder if repeating the interval sessions after a rest period would show more benefit for me, as it is more like our sport (a set of intervals being like 1 game).

The first thought I had was that if you do the intervals to exhaustion, you probably aren't going to get much from the second set of intervals. So the question becomes, is it better to do a set of intervals at a lower intensity, so that you can do subsequent intervals and maintain a high level (ie, not speedwalking the intervals). I didn't have the answer right off, I wanted to do some digging.

It seems perfectly logical that the longer you workout, the more gains (particularly aerobic) you'll see. In fact, the whole idea of the Tabata Intervals is a bit counter-intuitive. I get to train for very little time (5 minutes excluding warmup and cooldown) and I get better results than running for an hour (or whatever).

First question, how do you measure fitness, specifically the kind of fitness we're trying to develop for Ultimate? First, we can break it down to aerobic and anaerobic fitness. Aerobic fitness allows us to run at a moderate pace for a long time, anaerobic fitness allows us to run very fast (or jump). Anaerobic fitness, as I am describing it now, does not allow us to run faster, it simply allows us to run as fast as we can for a longer period. Ultimate relies on both of these systems. I need to be able to run fast as long as possible (anaerobic), but I'd like to use my aerobic system as much as possible because it's far more efficient than my anaerobic system.

Ok, that's great, but how do you actually quantify aerobic or anaerobic fitness. Aerobic fitness is almost universally described as an individual's VO2 max. Basically how much oxygen you're able to get into your bloodstream. Anaerobic fitness is much harder to quantify, Dr. Tabata apparentally is one of the first to use the particular method he used, it's a little too complicated to try and describe here (but you can read about it in this summary). Other factors that go into aerobic and anaerobic health are how efficiently your muscles are able to use oxygen (to perform aerobically), and how quickly your muscles are able to recover from working anaerobically.

That's all great, but what does it mean? Well, looking at a summary of Dr. Tabata's study give us some interesting information. Tabata had two exercise groups. One did the intervals I've mentioned before, where you're going all out for 20 seconds and resting for 10. The other group went all out for 30 seconds, and rested for 2 minutes. What he found was that the 20/10 intervals maxed out the aerobic and anaerobic systems while the 30/2min intervals were not able to provide the same intensity. So, even though you're actually doing more work in the 30/2min intervals, you get a 'better' aerobic and anaerobic workout in the 20/10 intervals. It appears to be all about the rest. Check out this quote supposedly from Dr. Tabata that I found here:

Dr. Tabata told Dick Winett in a personal communication:"The rate of increase in VO2max [14% in only 6 weeks] is one of the highest ever reported in exercise science." What’s more, anaerobic capacity increased by a whopping 28%.

However, we know that VO2 max isn't everything. Even if we throw out the whole concern that 20/10 intervals don't train the fast twitch explosiveness we want to get faster and jump higher, there are still aerobic and anaerobic fitness demands that aren't measured by VO2. Specifically, it appears from the Tabata study that the 30/2min intervals do a better job of improving the rate your muscles recover from working anaerobically, a very important factor for Ultimate in my opinion. The 30/2min intervals also show greater improvements in the maximum amount of power you're able to generate (the running fast and jumping thing). That's why, the program I've developed for SPSU this year has bi-weekly speed work where we are sprinting all out, but have 2-4 minutes of rest in between. This should help us keep improving our speed, and help improve our recovery.

In summary, Erin C. from Atlanta:

It appears you are best rewarded by going all out and having short rest periods. I hypothesize that if your rest period between sets of intervals is long enough for you to maintain a very high level of intensity, that you would see further improvements. Dr. Tabata had his subjects do the intervals 6 days a week. I would think it would be better to have a day off in between for your muscles to recover, but you could possibly do one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a day off in between. I have found no data to back that up though, it's just a hypothesis.

So although it seems illogical, you're actually training your endurance more by doing the short intervals with short rest, and training your power more by doing short intervals with long rest. Long intervals come in last with just working your aerobic system.

Ultimately, my suggestion would be to do the Tabata Intervals 3-6 times a week. Throw in some speedwork once or twice every couple of weeks (possibly more as you're looking to peak), and lay off the long distances.

For an alternate viewpoint, you should check out SERIOUS Training for Endurance Atheletes which stresses a lot of longer distance running, particularly in the offseason. Personally, I worry about losing my speed with that kind of workout, but what's right for you depends on what your goals are.

Updates

So I did my legs workout yesterday, and finally got through all 5 intervals on the stairmaster at level 15. I've got cardio info on the intervals that I'm going to try and figure out how to post. What are the rest of you doing though? Lee? Ned? Fox? Lee bet me a steak dinner he'd have his body fat down to 11% by July. A quick search in gmail for 'Lee steak' found me this from October 11...

Let it be known that this morning I weighed in at 200.3 and 22.8%, by July 1st I will be down to 182.3 and 11.7% or better. If not, I owe you a steak dinner.

So, how's the progress Lee?

Fox, what are you doing other than ripping on fat chicks at FedEx?

Ned, tell us about those fancy machines at your YMCA. Do they give you a printout of your progress?

Medicine Ball/Plyo Workout

I firmly believe that it is important to mix up your workouts. If you do the same thing every time you workout, your body gets really good at doing that workout, but you're not necessarily going to keep getting the on-the-field improvements. Even changing the order that you workout in can be helpful. So, once a week I try to do a different kind of workout. On Fridays I usually try to do medicine ball/plyos workout. Here's what I'm doing tomorrow:

Lying Med Ball Obliques - 3x10
Outside Rotation Pass - 10 each direction
Inside Rotation Pass - 10 each direction
Underhand Pass - 20
Seated Side Pass - 10 each direction
Situp and Throw - 2x10
Overhead Toss - 15
Lying Trunk Twist - 10
1 Leg Full Squats - to failure
Medicine Ball Pushups - 10
Medicine Ball Toss-Squat-Jump - 2x10
Medicine Ball Pushups - 10
Ankle Hops w/medicine ball - 3x15
Medicine Ball Pushups - 10
Alternating Leg Pushoffs - 2x10
Medicine Ball Pushups - 10
Depth Jump to Rim Jump - 5
30 Second Step Drills - 3

I really like the Medicine Ball Toss-Squat-Jumps. I read about some MLB player, base-stealer who did Medicine Ball Squat-Jump-Throws to increase his speed. I added the toss. You toss the ball straight up, catch it and immediately go into a crouch position (the toss helps load your muscles), then explode up and Throw the medicine ball as far as you can back over your head. I have to take the throw part out at the gym though, I don't think they'd take too kindly to me throwing around their medicine balls.

I don't feel like writing out descriptions to all the exercises. I got most of them from either The Great Medicine Ball Handbook or Jumping into Plyometrics (a great book).

Legs Workout

Here is the legs workout I've been doing. I've been able to do it a twice a week for the last few weeks. Not sure what I'm going to do when I start Air Alert, perhaps I can do Air Alert and legs on the same days, talk about tired legs!

I start out with a core workout (same whether I'm doing lower or upper body)
Incline crunches w/ med ball: 2 sets of 10 (10lbs)
Incline obliques w/ med ball: 1 set of 20 (6 lbs) - I haven't gotten up to 20 yet.
Hanging Leg Raises: 3 sets of 10
Lower Back Extensions: 3 sets of 10 (5lbs) - Today will be the first time I've added weight to these.

I'm not thrilled with the abs workout. The gym I go to has an oblique machine but I hate it. The incline obliques I do work my abs a lot too so I am limited to 3 sets of the two exercises total. Any suggestions for an exercise that isolates the obliques more?

On to the legs:
Leg Press: 3 sets of 8 (360lbs) - I recently maxed out the leg press machine at the gym (500lbs) so I had to switch to a different machine. It feels completely different, still getting used to it, hopefully I'll be able to up my load quickly.
Lying Leg Curl: 3 sets of 8 (110)
Lunges: 3 sets of 8 per leg (80) - Done with barbell on shoulders. I tried holding dumbells but my arms get incredibly fatigued doing 3 sets of 8 on each leg. I like these better than the leg extensions as they're easier on my knees.
One Legged Squats: 3 sets of 8 per leg (100) - Like regular squats, but you put a bench a foot or two behind you, and put one foot on the bench allowing you to isolate one leg.
Hip Adductor: 2 sets of 15 (135) - Maintaining the groin, pull it once and you never want to again.
Hip Abductor: 2 sets of 15 (140)
Seated Calf Raises: 3 sets of 8 (135) - These almost cramped me up last time.
Standing Calf Raises: 2 sets of 20 (100) - I can't go over 100 lbs on this thing without hurting my back. So I do these for endurance which I need 'cause my calves are always the first to cramp.

I have two different basic approaches to leg exercises. For most exercises I do 3 sets of 8. You don't want to do too many reps if you're trying to build power and explosiveness. I do this for most of the big muscle groups. For support muscles I try to go for more endurance, so I'll do more reps (15-20). I do leg press instead of squats simply because I've never learned proper squat form and squats scare me. Maybe if I continue to enjoy the one legged squats I'll try some regular squats. I should probably be doing both leg press and squats. Someday.

Air Alert III

Okay, so I admit to participating in the verbal intercourse that bore this blog. That said, Air Alert III has worked wonders for me and the Emory kids participating in it with me. I am finishing week nine on Friday, and already my vertical has gone from 17.5" to 25", a whopping 7.5" increase. Some of the kids have experienced similar gains. The best part is, the program goes 15 weeks and it promises between 8" and 14".

However, the program is not easy, by any stretch of the word. Your legs will hurt. There will be sets that you think that you simply cannot complete because your legs hurt so bad. There are times where you compromise form for future reps. When this happens, you have to push yourself, and sometimes you really don't think you can. For me, it's the calf raises. I hit around 35 and the last 15 are absolute death. But, a good part about this program is, while it ramps up quickly, the preceding week definitely preps you for its successor. When you get to about week six, you begin to look down on those who are on week, say, three as sissies because they have half as many to do as you and they're whining.

Another pitfall to this program is that you must re-learn how to read the disc. "Whatever, I read so well now that nothing could alter my super-human reading skills." Picture this: you read very well, you jump at full strength at the right moment and get the disc at your full extension at your highest point every time. Now, imagine adding 4" to your jump. Or imagine adding even 1" to your jump. You are going to start doinking discs because even though you are up there, your hand is way above where the disc is. This is why even if you choose to do this program, you MUST still go out there and play. In fact, the program instructs that you do so. You have to learn your new highest point, and man is it not easy. This goes doubly for during the week when your legs are shot from the workout and your vertical is actually lower than where it would be if you would wait a day or two. Essentially, your vertical leap is in flux the whole time you're doing this program, so reading becomes a chore. Also, whenever a disc goes up and it's you against someone not on the program, everyone who knows this fact chants simultaneously, "Oooh, let's see if that jump program's working!" or, "Air Alert!" which kind of puts you on the spot and forces you to get the D or catch or succumb to indefinite haranguing.

I do highly suggest this program, although it is not for the unmotivated or the faint of heart. If you truly wish to see results, you must follow the program to the letter and really focus on your form as opposed to the reps you're doing. I missed the Friday of week seven and the Friday of week eight (Turkey Tourney all day travel, and family Thanksgiving travel to FuttBuck, IN, respectively) and came back to measure at the beginning of week nine to see that I'd lost four inches to my vertical. Also, aside from being the most mentally painful day, it was also the most physically painful since day one, week one. Yesterday wasn't that bad, giving me hope that I will gain those 4" back and maybe some come next Tuesday.

It also makes your legs ridiculously buff, which ladies like.

Cardio - Interval Training basics

This year, for cardio, I plan on doing Taku's intervals. Taku's intervals are based on the findings of Dr. Tabata. Dr. Tabata describes an ideal interval rate as being 10 sets of 20 seconds all out, and 10 seconds of rest between sets. Taku altered the program to build up slowly to the 10 sets of 20/10. My current program ramps up even slower than Taku's. For the past month and a half I've been doing 4x90/90, 3 times a week. That is, 4 sets of 90 seconds running, with 90 seconds of rest(walking) between sets. This week I just started doing 5x60/50s 3 times a week. I plan on continue the 5x60/50s for December, then, starting in January, moving on. I originally planned on continuing to ramp up slowly, here are the steps involved:

4x90/90
5x60/50
6x45/30
7x30/20
8x20/10
10x20/10

Currently, though, I'm thinking I'll spend a max of 2 weeks on any one step (after this month of 5x60/50s) so that we (my SPSU team will be doing the same workouts) can get to the 10x20/10s faster.

A quick explanation of why High Intensity Interval Training works: Your muscles have 2 (basic) types of muscle fibers. Slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscles. Slow-twitch are the marathon fibers, and fast-twitch are the sprint fibers. Your body activates the slow-twitch muscles first, because they are more energy efficient. If the slow-twitch muscle fibers are insufficient to get the force your need, your body will start activating fast-twitch muscle fibers. So, if you're doing your standard 15-30 minutes of running at a steady pace, you're probably never going to activate your fast-twitch muscles (in fact, you'll train your body to use more slow-twitch muscles, making it harder for you to develop power in a game when you need it). You may still be taxing your aerobic system, but a large percentage of your muscles are being unused. If you do a high intensity exercise, you're going have to recruit both muscle fiber types to get the force you need. This is going to put a higher tax on your aerobic system, and work all of your muscle fibers (and you should see a much lower conversion of fast to slow-twitch fibers, more on that later). Anecdotally, this seems much more like a game of Ultimate than running a steady pace for even just 10 minutes.

One thing I like about the intervals is that you can do them in many different ways. Just straight running is the obvious choice, and it's what we primarily do at practices now, but you can also do them on a bike, elliptical, jump rope or even stairmaster (I did my 5x60/50s on the stairmaster this week and it's brutal). As the intervals get smaller, I envision doing suicides/shuttles/cutting drills etc.

You've got to remember that you should be working as hard as you possibly can over the period of the interval. That doesn't mean I'm sprinting for 90 seconds, it just means I'm running as fast as I can possibly maintain for 90 seconds. You should be exhausted at the end of the workout. Dr. Tabata's subjects were professional cyclists and apparentally they laid on the floor gasping for air after the workouts. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I've got a goal!

Because I want to be exhausted afterwards, I do my intervals after everything else I have planned. If I'm lifting at the gym, I do my intervals afterwards, if I have practice, we do our intervals at the end of practice. It doesn't matter how fast you do them, simply that you're working as hard as possible. If you've been doing legs at the gym, then do the intervals, you'll probably reach exhaustion at a lower level than normal, but you should be getting the same benefit (and I read somewhere, though I can't find it now, that it's even better to do after a workout).

Tabata intervals may have a drawback however. There seems to be some evidence that you can lose some fast-twitch muscle fiber by doing short rest intervals. It's all rather confusing, check out this post on Lean and Hungry Fitness for more details if you're interested. To combat this, I've decided to replace one set of intervals every other week with a speed workout. For instance, if it's a speed week, I'll do a set of intervals on Monday, on Tuesday I'll do 5 40 yard sprints with 4 minutes rest between sprints, then on Thursday I'll do another set of intervals.

So, this week I did 5x60/50s on Monday on the stairmaster, after I did a legs workout.
On Wednesday, I did another legs workout followed by a 5x60/50s on the stairmaster again. It's definitely rough. I'm hitting level 15 for the first two, then having to drop down to 13 so I don't fall off and get sucked into the machine. I don't feel like I'm getting quite as good an aerobic workout as if I was running, but my legs are definitely getting killed. My calves almost cramped up Wednesday. Tonight I plan on running the 5x60/50s after practice with the team, I'll comment here and let you all know how it goes.

Mission Statement

The purpose of this blog is to give members of the Ultimate team Rival an opportunity to share their workouts and help motivate one another to keep up with their workouts. I'll be posting my workouts (cardio, weight lifting, plyos, etc.) and encourage other Rivalers to do the same. We can discuss different exercises, workout theory, whatever. A discussion I had with Edelman over the benefit of the Norwegian Hamstring exercise (good for injury prevention but not necessarily great for improving vertical or speed) is basically what prompted me to start this blog. Drop me an email if you'd like to post.