2013-11-19

Workout Of The Day

Today is a HIIT day for me, so I'll be running a ladder. I'm not sure I've ever blogged about this, which is odd considering that ladders are some of my favorite workouts. "Ladder" is used to denote a great many things in fitness.

One type of ladder involves setting up pylons at various distances in front of a starting line, and then sprinting to the nearest pylon and back, then the second-nearest pylon and back, then the third-nearest and back, and so on. This is an excellent workout, commonly used to train football and basketball teams. But this is not the sort of ladder I intend to do today.

Another type of ladder involves running a series of intervals at a track. We would run various distances in ascending and then descending order (i.e. "up the ladder" and then back "down the ladder"). For example, one common ladder would be to run 200m, 400m, 600m, 800m, 1200m, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m, all with 60 seconds rest in between. This is an excellent workout, commonly used to train middle-distance runners. But this is not the sort of ladder I intend to do today.

Still another type of ladder involves intervals of time rather than distance. This kind of ladder can be performed through any sort of cardiovascular training activity: running, biking, swimming, rowing, or any sort of cardio machine. The way it works is that we work our way through various periods of high-exertion. So, for example, we might run for 60 seconds at a hard pace, then jog easily for 60 seconds; then run at a hard pace for 2 minutes, then jog easily for 60 seconds, then 2 minutes hard/1 minute easy, then 3 minutes hard/1 minute easy, and so on. We can construct the ladder in any sort of way, you don't have to go up and down by 1-minute increments. Instead, you can go by 2-minute increments. Or you can do 3mins, 5mins, 7mins, 10mins, and back down. The choice is up to you and your training needs.

It is this last type of ladder that I have in mind for my workout today. Since my goal for this week is to play around with my workouts, I haven't quite decided how I will design today's ladder.

So that's today's workout: Design a ladder of the third type described in this post, and then perform it!

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