Barbara Lockhart, a BYU exercise science professor, says she
hasn’t run more than a mile in forty years. But that doesn’t
jive with the fact that Lockhart recently completed a day-long
hike without a problem. Her secret? Interval training. What It
Is Interval training is when you do any kind of intense activity
to get your heart rate up, and then let your heart rate go down
again. Then you repeat the process multiple times. For example,
you sprint 800 meters. Then you rest for a minute. Then you go
again at 100 percent. Who’s Doing It Interval training seems to
spit in the face of accepted get-fit tactics, which say
sustained high heart beat is the way to go. But Lockhart says
steady state exercise isn’t the king of fitness. “You see people
go round and round the track,” she says. “But that isn’t how
today’s athletes train.” She says modern athletes, even distance
runners, do interval training, splitting their workouts into
sections of high intensity and rest. This kind of training
improves how well the heart