Intermittent Fitness Training (IFT)

There are many folks out there who do not feel that aerobic exercise is important to perform if certain parameters are met during an individuals strength program, and to some degree, this may be true but not everyone trains the same way and some folks feel better when they are more active. There are many physical as well as intrinsic values from being active but that’s a story for another time so I digress and now on to my point.

More and more research is showing that a person can benefit greatly from applying a very simple approach to improving their overall fitness: Intermittent Fitness Training (IFT).

Allow me to explain. The Department of Health & Human Services recommends 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week along with 2-3 strength training sessions to round out their health and fitness. If one were to simply approach their aerobic effort each and every day using a moderate approach, that would require an individual to perform some kind of activity for roughly 20 minutes. If one were to bump it up a notch, that would yield about 10 minutes a day of something a bit more intense. Of course, you can alternate activities and effort levels during the week to accommodate goals, energy levels, recovery, time, life, etc., etc. But now here’s the even better news: These periods of effort can be performed throughout the day and don’t need to be done all at one time. What that means is you can accumulate the benefits of exercise throughout the day, minimizing the block of time you once thought you needed to have so find time to go for a short, purposeful walk, take the bike out for a short spin, jump rope in the morning and a stroll later that night. You get the picture.

Remember,  “A little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing”