Intervals- Does it matter whether you jog or walk the recoveries?

why are there so many di*ks on these forums?

I thought that having a higher proportion of good runners would have the opposite effect, and you'd have encouragement for beginners?

thanks.

this is the sort of thing i was looking for

thanks

I have read some published data that completely stand still actually INCREASES interval time in short distance, hard effort intervals. I'll look for where I read that bit, but my motto is to make sure I just keep moving. Jog most of the time, walk some of the time, stand stone still as rarely as possible.

someone said so wrote:

You get more rest standing the interval than jogging the interval. Your heart rate will be lower with more rest so it depends on what the intent of your workout is. Maybe start out with standing rest, then as your fitness improves start jogging the intervals.

Wow, you know shat about crap. Please don't comment on these boards. Ever. Again.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

someone said so wrote:

You get more rest standing the interval than jogging the interval. Your heart rate will be lower with more rest so it depends on what the intent of your workout is. Maybe start out with standing rest, then as your fitness improves start jogging the intervals.

This covers it.

I find if recovery is short 60 secs or less some runners prefer to stand whereas longer recoveries say 2 mins+ feels more natural to jog them

You quoted pure BS. Great coach, huh?

In college I found the sprinters always walked. They walked a lot.

Middle distance guys ... 400m, 800m ... took short recovery jog/walks. The key was to get the heart rate down before the next interval.

Distance guys ... 1 mile and up ... usually jogged between intervals. Their heart rate dropped so fast that it didn't take much recovery. But their intervals were usually longer and slower.

Pre's 30-40 workout...Boom...drops mic. End of thread.

somebloke wrote:

Wow, you know shat about crap. Please don't comment on these boards. Ever. Again.

You must be old here.

'You quoted pure BS. Great coach, huh?'

Great critical analysis

In classic interval training as developed by Gerschler in the 1950s the key factor was that the pulse rate returned to 120bpm before the next fast section could begin. Standing (or even lying down!) enabled this to happen quicker than a jogger recovery. Progress was measured by how rapidly the heart rate lowered itself to 120bpm and how many efforts you could do before the rate did not return to 120 bpm within 90 seconds - which was when the session ended. However, I don't imagine that many (if any) runners use such classic training these days and in my experience the vast majority of runners jog the interval - unless it is the sort of session with, say 30 seconds between efforts when you don't have time to do much more than decelerate and get ready for the next effort. Even in a repetition session such as 2x1200 @ 1500 pace with a long - 5 to 10 minutes - recovery you would spend most of that recovery jogging very gently simply to ensure you were ready for the second effort. If you simply stood around for 7 minutes or so you wouldn't run very fast onthe second rep and could easily injure yourself.

Research has shown that jogging at 60% of your lactate threshold will maximally assist in the clearance of lactic acid from your muscles.

But you question was, which is better, jogging or standing. The answer is there is a time and place for both and it depends on your goals.

Agreed! but in interval work as practised by Gerschler (and Igloi come to that) the speed and distance of the faster section was deliberately restricted so as to minimise the accumulation of lactic acid - at least during the six month build up phase of training. It is a commom misconception that interval work is necessarily anaeriobic. Whether it is or isn't depends entirely on the session being run. eg 40x200 with recovery to pulse rate of 120bpm will not be an anaerobic session. There will be a small anaerobic element involved but no more than on, say, a reasonably paced 10 mile run over a route that includes a few stiff hills.

Better question: in the last few steps before the next intervals, do you accelerate so that you are "at speed" when the next interval begin (whether based on time or crossing a mark)? i.e. a rolling start?

I do that, because I don't think accelerating during the interval would make more sense. As a result a 400m rep probably has 20-30m of acceleration before and 10-20m of decelration after, so that a 1 min recovery for example is more like 45s jog in between accel/slow down.

I'd say the preferred format would be 3 x (4x400). You can't get that wrong.