Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Interval training showed me how unfit I am

I couldn't do what I had planned so I had to cut it down so I could finish.  I wanted to run hard for 1 min and 30 secs and jogged slower for 1 min and do this 5 times.  This was in order to simulate the anaerobic conditions of a fight.  After the first minute of the first "round" I realised that I was not going to be able to do another 30 seconds or do 4 more 1 min 30 seconds so decided to just start at 1 min anaerobic and 1 min aerobic.  I completed 5x1min rounds but it was harder than I anticipated, despite expecting a tough session!  I will be gradually increasing the speed as well, but I'll stick to a speed of about 70% of my top speed at the moment until I can complete a full round of hard running.

I have decided that on Wednesdays I will be doing this training and on Mondays and Fridays I will do my normal 4k run, gradually increasing this again in a cyclical manner.  For the next three Wednesdays I will increase my round by ten seconds so that by March 4th I will be doing the full round of 1 minute and 30 seconds.  My contingency plan, should I fail to be able to do this is that I will simply increase by five seconds instead of ten.  It may take longer to reach my goal but at least I know I will get there.

By the way, to explain what I've been doing with all this running -  I don't have the time nor money to train properly so I'm just doing what I can at the moment with what I have.  I'm starting with running for two reasons. Firstly I need to have better stamina, as this is one of the reasons I had to retire in my fight. Secondly, I want to get into the habit of running every morning and going on previous attempts, starting is half the battle. If I can keep it up for a few months I will most probably keep it up and be able to gradually increase it to running every day rather than every other day.  Anaerobic stamina is the thing I hate training the most and as a result, I've got really shit anaerobic stamina.  Once I have an established routine where I am running at least 4k twice a week and doing interval training which is representative of fight conditioning I will be moving onto increasing my all over power/strength. I know the two works have different meanings in terms of what reps/weights you do but I'll be researching that in the coming weeks so that I'm not wasting my time and potentially doing damage to my body.

Finally - If anyone is actually reading this and knows anything about breathing when running then comment or get in touch.  I don't know if I should be trying to regulate my breathing or breathing faster as I run faster.  If you have any advice then let me know.  Neither seems to feel any different as I've tried both while running but I'm certain I should really be doing one, the problem is I can't remember which one!

Cheers. x
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

shouldn't you be doing shorter intervals, like warm up then 30secs sprint, 1 min jog then cool down?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training

kieraninmotion said...

Partially. I'll be doing tabata intervals for callesthenics/beodyweight exercises etc but the main aim here is to increase my anaerobic threshold. I was going to have 1 min run followed by 2 min jog but I decided to make it as realistic in fight terms as possible.

Fight training has been massively changing in the past few years as it becomes more scientific, especially within MMA, so training to be fighting fit is a little bit different to training to lose weight, training for a marathon or like iron man training or whatever. Ideally, everything should be based around your round. I fight 5x1.30 min rounds so everything I do will ideally (operative word) be in rounds of 2 mins - sparring, pad work, sprints, bodyweight training etc so that it mirrors my fighting conditions.

kieraninmotion said...

oops, forgot to say - I've been following the advice of Alex Gold and Kevin Kearns from the magazine Fighters Only. Both work with top MMA artists and get them into shape for their fights and have columns in the magazine.

Anonymous said...

Hi Kieran, it's Mike from UGS here. I was reading about your training and it sounds like you've got a good plan on the go. With fight specific training in mind, have you thought about putting your gum shield in while doing your cardio work? That should help you regulate your breathing like you would do in a fight. Or if you want to go to extremes you could go Wanderlei Silva style and tape a snorkle to your face to restrict your airflow!

I remember hearing you mention in the past about your plans to move to Dundee. There's a park right beside my house that's great for running. It's a mile all the way round, has hills, and also has a small section that's perfect for doing interval sprints. We'll need to catch up for a run when you make your way through!

kieraninmotion said...

Hey Mike, love to go out for a run if/when I am living in Dundee :) That's actually a good idea, never heard of that before! Didn't think Wandy could look any tougher but with a snorkel on his face after a run, I guess he would be!