Are fartleks a type of HIIT?

It's exhausting trying not to reply to these fartlek threads about what they are.

Fartlek is to be done strictly by feel. Turn the watch around or something so you never look at it.

Get in a warm-up so you are...well....warm...limber, have blood in the working muscles....

Run strictly by feel, fast for a while, and slow for a while. Maybe pick out a parked car or a hydro pole or a house to get to and do not strain and do not look at the watch AT ALL. But go fast (er). Don't think about how fast. Think of how it feels faster, how your form is, enjoy it.

Fartlek is especially good during the aerobic base-building phase, once per week with NO PACING WHATSOEVER.

It is NOT HIIT. It is not interval training, it is not to be fully anaerobic.

You might run something like 10 times fast and 10 times slow over at a not-measured distance or route and again not at any pace and not looking at the watch at all. Change the area you fartlek in, so you don't get accustomed to imaginary splits.

You should finish feeling like you had a workout, but not knee grabbing, not exhausted.

The idea is for you to continue neuromuscular function, coordination, and stimulus of the top of the aerobic +/- strata.

If your fartlek run is anything other than that, then it may be a Jono or Mona fartlek, which are wonderful workouts but they are not fartleks.

Speed play, by feel, faster, recover by feel, go again by feel, start by feel, finish by feel.

Feel.

malmo wrote:

There is no "S" in fartlek.

Plural form. Fartleker in norwegian and presumably swedish, fartleks in english.

EXACTLY.

The old style of fartlek isn't that common anymore in spite of the scolds who insist on the outdated definition. Contemporary fartlek is just an interval workout away from the track, usually with intervals by time instead of distance. You could do HIIT under this framework if you wanted to, just adjust your fast and slow periods accordingly.

another perspective wrote:

The old style of fartlek isn't that common anymore in spite of the scolds who insist on the outdated definition. Contemporary fartlek is just an interval workout away from the track, usually with intervals by time instead of distance. You could do HIIT under this framework if you wanted to, just adjust your fast and slow periods accordingly.

EXACTY

Some of these guys are crustier than a deep dish pizza.

There's also the version where some evil coach, or your training partners, play with you! Say 6 of you on a college squad go out for a run, and after 10 minutes warmup you each get to "dictate" for 5 minutes and do what you want in that time. Or where your coach blows a whistle to tell you when to change jog, cruise or sprint .