The Fit Post

Ok, get your giggles out now…go ahead, say it…FART FART FART FART FART FART.  Better? I know,  fartlek sounds amusing and on a Friday especially, it’s hard to say the word without smirking.  However, fartleks have nothing to do with last night’s bean burrito…rather, it’s a Swedish word meaning “speed play” and refers to a kind of conditioning that varies exercise intensity.  A less precise form of interval training, fartleks are meant to put aerobic sand anaerobic systems (read below for more info) under stress using short and frequent bursts of exercise that increase your heart rate.  Not being able to think of an appropriate picture for this post, I chose one of Usain Bolt (per usual, several strides ahead of his opponents looking pretty confident…rightfully so), considering that he represents speed and dynamism.  You don’t need to be a three-time Olympic gold medalist to benefit from fartlek training.  The beauty of this kind of conditioning is that it is highly flexible (great for walkers, runners, cyclists, football players etc) and only involves increasing varying levels of endurance and speed (can be done across any kind of terrain/elevation/distance).

Example of a Fartlek: Jog for 60 seconds/hard run 30 seconds/jog 30 seconds/sprint 10 seconds/walk 30 seconds – repeat for 20-30 minutes

Benefits of combining aerobic (when body uses oxygen to create energy) and anaerobic exercise (when body creates energy without oxygen) activity:  anaerobic exercise is thought to burn more calories than aerobic on a 5 to 1 basis with aerobic exercising burning 25% muscle/75% fat vs. anaerobic burning 100% fat.  Examples of aerobic exercise include dancing, jogging etc. while anaerobic activities require weight resistence like lifting dumbbells or hill sprints.  The aerobic process of exercising the cardiovascular and circulatory system coupled with anaerobic work of building lean muscle make fartleks a much better workout than they sound.

~ by Maggie on October 9, 2009.

Posted in Running