by Maria Hicks

I love interval training and as a trainer, I get a lot of questions about it and people wanting to try it out. One of my fitness mottos is “workout smarter, not harder” – I didn’t make that up, but, I heard it somewhere and I think that it fits well with exercise. I know most people don’t have a lot of time to exercise, so, I think if you have a short amount of time to workout; you need to really make it work!

Research states that interval training will accelerate fat burning for several hours after you are finished exercising. I started incorporating interval training in my exercise routine a few years ago and I like to do 2-3 interval workouts a week (never back to back). I have noticed a huge change in my fitness levels in a shorter amount of time working out, than when I spent 1-2 hours a day working out. Now, we can’t say “there’s no time” to exercise. You will only need 20 minutes, or even just 10 minutes.

Here’s an example using a piece of equipment (stationary bike, elliptical or treadmill) – you could do this outside but a machine is easier to keep track of time and not risk twisting an ankle by running off a curb.

• 5 minute warm up
• 1 minute FAST (you really want to challenge yourself here but not to the point of feeling dizzy or risk falling off the machine)
• 1 minute SLOW (this is your “recovery minute”)
• Repeat 10 times (for a total of 20 minutes)
• 5 minute cool down and stretch. Yep, that’s it!