Is high-intensity exercise for you?

High-intensity exercise conjures the image of aggressive, athletic body types running sprints and jumping on boxes. It evokes the burning sensation of heavy-duty exercise efforts that leave you panting and reeling.

High-intensity exercise does include hard effort, but the intensity is all relative to your current status. High intensity exercise offers heart and blood vessel health and astounding results in little time compared to more traditionalistic exercises. It can be done at all ability levels.

High intensity interval training means using a short period of fast, hard exercise, which is beyond your ability to continue for a long duration. This effort is followed by a period of low-level exercise that is sustainable for a long time. These "intervals" produce a much higher heart and breathing rate in the short term, while keeping the overall pace of the exercise steady over the session.

This results in more efficient heart blood transfer, oxygen uptake by the lungs, and energy creation by the muscles. It will give you a higher output, and lower fatigue at a given pace, making you efficient, fast, and fit. It is important to remember, the heart rate spikes need to be followed by subsequent rest or the body will not recover.

There is a misconception that this type of exercise can only be for young, able, and elite fitness types. This isn't true, as the most important thing is relative effort. In a study where inactive participants rated their level of enjoyment of an interval training protocol vs. steady continuous efforts, their enjoyment of exercise improved with interval training. Eighty percent of them continued to do interval training according to post study in a follow-up.

A few points to consider to a curious interval trainer:

• Use a scale from 1-10 to judge effort. The intervals need to be at 7-10. The rest needs to be a 4-5.

• Begin with at least a five-minute warm-up period with a few surges in pace around 10 seconds. A work-to-rest ratio of one-to-four is the proper place to start, otherwise the work sets will not be high enough. Example - 30 seconds to 2 minutes.

• Four intervals is enough to get a good benefit; building up to eight would be the upper limit.

• Total time: Five-minute warm up, 10 minutes of intervals (:30/2:00 x4) and a 5-minute steady cool down = 20 minutes.

Interval training is time-effective, it can be used with a variety of exercise modalities, and it is a good way to maintain engagement with an exercise program. An elite athlete or a new trainee needs to scale the work and rest efforts to their own level. Don't fall for the trap of harder-and-faster-is-better. Intervals at too hard an effort level don't allow for a full duration of quality exercise. Progression is the goal.

If you're time crunched, and you're desperate for a new type of exercise program, interval training is highly recommended. Give it a try and perform two to three sessions a week along with a long more-traditional cardio-type activity. This will be a good way to try something new!