Speed Play

One of my favorite training methods is called Fartlek. Fartlek is Swedish word that means “speed play”. This training method was created in 1937 by the Swedish coach, Gosta Holmer, in order to improve the results of his Swedish cross-country runners who were easily beaten for years by the Finish cross-country runners. Since then the Fartlek training method became widely popular throughout the world, first amongst coaches, runners, and athletes from many other sports. Because of its simplicity, Fartlek is also an excellent training method for amateur and recreational athletes.

Fartlek mixes two types of physical training: continuous and interval. The constant change of running intensity without any intervals of rest has a positive effect on both aerobic and anaerobic systems. While professional coaches and athletes have a very structured approach to Fartlek with strictly defined durations of anaerobic sprints and aerobic runs, recreational athletes can afford a luxury to approach Fartlek with lot more flexibility.

The duration of Fartlek is not strictly defined but most of the coaches and athletes that I know work in the 45 – 60 minute time frame. Here is one of the Fartlek variations described:

                

                Warm up:

-                                        Regular joint warm up exercises

-                                        Dynamic stretching

-                                        3 – 4 minute walk

-                                        6 – 7 minutes easy run

-                                        6 x 100 yards accelerations (so that you can prepare muscles, ligaments, and tendons for accelerations)

                Main:

Pick a landmark ahead of you (telephone pole, traffic sign, etc.) and run fast until you reach your landmark. After that, jog (or power walk) until you pick the next landmark and run fast again. You can create your intervals based on the terrain, weather conditions, or based on how fresh or tired you are on that particular day. You can choose longer or shorter speed intervals or longer or shorter jog/power walk intervals. You can run your speed intervals very hard or with only 60% of maximum intensity. Feel free to customize your workout.

                Cool down:

-                                        6 – 7 minutes easy run

-                                        3 – 4 minute walk

-                                        Static stretching

The cool down is as equally important part of the workout as the warm up is. The cool down will gradually bring down your heart rate and respiration to pre-workout levels. Also, cooling down will accelerate lactic acid removal.

If you haven’t tried Fartlek before, try it now. You will love it.

Muscle Confusion: the Term that the Fitness Industry Should be Ashamed of

Fitness is a multibillion dollar industry. The parts of the industry that I admire and support are gyms and health clubs. Gym and health club memberships are extremely cheap considering how big the return on investment is. No dollar spent for these memberships is a dollar wasted. On the other side of the spectrum is the segment of industry that exploits people’s weaknesses. These are the fitness infomercials that promote muscle confusion training programs. While I admit that it is a lot better doing any “muscle confusion” DVD training instead of spending most of the day in a recliner, I cannot find more than one good thing in these training programs. This good thing is the variety of exercises. Some of them are very creative and can be effectively used as a part of training session. But using term “muscle confusion” is so wrong and improper that every professional who uses this term in communication with clients should be retrained and reeducated or forced to resign from their position at the gym or sports club.

Skeletal muscle tissue does not have the ability to think and memorize. Thus, muscle tissue cannot be confused, it is impossible. For those who are unfamiliar with the human anatomy, skeletal muscles are controlled by somatic nervous system, also known as the voluntary nervous system. In plain and simple language, skeletal muscles are tools for the voluntary nervous system used to control body movements.

As I have established already, I profoundly disapprove the term “muscle confusion”. In addition to this term used to describe essence of these DVD training programs, I also disapprove the concept of them. You cannot just pile up a bunch of different exercises on one DVD and expect to produce any significant results. Physical training is an adaptive process. When you stress your body with a workout above minimum threshold intensity your body will respond (adapt) to this stress by increasing the abilities of the targeted muscles. But when your muscle adapts to a certain stress or load level you need to gradually and carefully increase the load, not to “confuse the muscle”. Next thing that has nothing to do with “muscle confusion” but is important for increasing muscular abilities is the duration of rest time between exercise sets and between training sessions for the specific parts of the muscular system. The next factor necessary for the progress of muscles abilities is reversibility, which basically means timely decrease of the use of certain muscles because of increased risk of injury.

As somebody who belongs to this industry I am deeply offended by the individuals and companies who use the fact that the consumer does not have any or enough knowledge on the subject of planning and executing training process. I want to advise everybody who contemplating purchasing the muscle confusion DVDs: do not waste your money because in the long run you will get nothing back. Become a member of the closest gym or just go outdoors and do a power walk or run. But be consistent, exercise every week, every month, every year till you are able to breath and walk. Change your lifestyle from reactive to active, start eating healthy, drink lot of water and you will feel strong and in control. Do not give money to those who are confusing your brain by making DVDs about confusing your muscles.