As a continuation of my last post I wanted to post some training sessions that are great to work on recovery and aerobic fitness and that can be used on your general off days from training for recovery instead of just doing nothing at all. The tempo runs I will describe is from information I researched from Charlie Francis well known sprint trainer and conditioning coach to a number of former world Olympic athletes and Joel Jamieson, trainer to world class MMA fighters . Doing tempo runs involve doing a 12-15 second run at about 70-75% speed and about 60s rest in between reps.
Doing these intervals are a good form of active recovery and HRV measures will noticeably improve on days following tempo runs compared to rest days where nothing at all was done. A lot of this simply has to do with activation of the body’s aerobic and adaptive mechanisms combined with a minimum of residual fatigue from the loading.
This is really what active recovery does in general, it activates the body’s adaptive biological systems and “jump starts” them if you will, while keeping fatigue to a minimum. The result is improved recovery and when performed at low to moderate volumes, tempo runs are an effective form of this.
Aerobic Fitness
In whatever sport you practice, in order for the tempo method to have a more aerobic bias you should perform the tempo intervals in higher volumes and also incorporate more sport specific drills say for example as an MMA athlete you could incorporate specific MMA drills like bag and pad work. This tempo method can be used 1-3 times per week and should be performed on typical of days or at the end of other training sessions.
When used in higher volumes, somewhere between 20-30 minutes of the intervals per session, notable improvements will be seen in aerobic fitness as well as increased work capacity. During the rest intervals as well it is better to keep moving rather than doing nothing as the pace is just slowed dramatically.
Recommendations
If you’re looking for a good form of active recovery and to build some work capacity – then try using tempo intervals at a low to moderate volume on your off days. Something like 15-20 minutes generally seems to be about right and for this purpose, I think more generalized training like running can be used.
If you’re working on improving aerobic fitness, try increasing the volume to 20-30 minutes and get in at least two sessions per week.
Also, for this purpose I suggest keeping moving during the rest interval. A good example would be to do some low intensity runs at about a 70% intensity for 12-15 seconds and then do any low intensity exercise like medicine ball core work or jumping rope for 60s or so. You can then simply repeat this for however long you want.
One of the keys to doing tempo intervals is using the right training intensity. You shouldn’t feel exhausted or worn out when you’re done with this type of work. You should feel like you worked, but not anything like after a heavy sparring or grappling session. This type of training should be around a 5 or 6 on a 1-10 scale of overall intensity.
Other sample tempo sessions I have come across:
5 x (100 +100+200+100)
+denotes a 50m walk
Other low intensity work to incorporate in rest periods
-plyos
medball core work
Give them a shot and feel free to post your comments to let me know how they work.
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