DURATION OF REST IN INTERVAL TRAINING

Report #7255

To become stronger and faster, athletes use a technique called interval training, in which they exercise very intensely, rest and then alternate intense bursts of exercise and rest until their muscles start to feel heavy. Rest periods are different for runners and weightlifters

In interval training, a runner may run a quarter mile 12 times, averaging 1 minute, with a 110 yard slow jog between each. A weightlifter may lift a heavy weight ten times in a row and then repeat another set of ten. Runners run intervals as fast as they can and recover enough to run the same fast pace several times. Research shows that runners need very short recoveries between intervals, usually only about 30 seconds. However, weightlifters need much longer recoveries, at least 2 and a half minutes.

Runners become short of breath and feel a burning in their muscles when lactic acid starts to accumulate in muscles. It takes only a few seconds for a trained athlete to recover from hard running and clear lactic acid, so runners need usually need short 30 second recoveries between each hard run. On the other hand, weightlifters feel a burning caused by a tearing of the muscle fibers and a recent article in the British Journal of Sports medicine shows that it takes a much longer time for the pain to disappear and they can again lift very heavy weights (1).

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News