Jogging vs. Standing/Walking Recovery

[BEER STEAK]

Joe, can you talk a little about recoveries between repetitions if you're doing an interval workout? It seems that people can either jog the recovery, or take it very easy and just stand or walk.

What are the benefits of each type? What types of workouts go with each type? Also, in what way would it change a given workout if you substituted one type of rest for the other?

Thanks.

[Joe Rubio]

The purpose of a recovery interval is to allow your heart rate to drop to a level so you can complete the next hard session as planned. If you think about it, the harder the fast running, the slower the rest interval. So if you're doing something like 2 x 400 as fast as you can possibly do it (this is a workout a miler will do every once in a while) you really can't do anything but barely stand afterwards, so you do a 8 minute standing around after you pull yourself off the track kind of recovery. If you're going somewhat slower, say mile race pace but with a short recovery, again, it's standing. After this point it's jogging. Jogging helps move the crap out of your system, same concept as jogging your recovery day versus taking a day off - jogging helps recovery.

If you have to take a walking or standing recovery after your hard rep, you are running very hard and probably over your head - the idea in nearly every case is to keep it controlled so you can jog your recovery.

Make sense? If not, drop me a line.

Joe

[ilikerunning]

Interesting topic Joe. We do a workout called 60/60 once in a while. Its a Milers workout. 4x400 at 60 second pace/60 second rest. After every rep, we just hold our knees trying to catch our breaths. When the next rep starts, we are all still very tired. Last monday we did this workout. I hit 59, 60, 61, 66. I have no clue what happened on that last one.

[BEER STEAK]

Yeah, that makes sense. I have a friend who does mile repeats with a 2-3 minute standing rest whereas I do mine with a 400 jog. I'd been wondering if there were different purposes to the workout, but it sounds like no, either way will help you recover.

Are there ever times where you'll purposely schedule something like ilikerunning mentioned - fast speed with short rest - to work on lactic acid buffering? Or is a better workout for that simply doing longer repetitions at those fast speeds (ie, instead of 4x400 in 60 with short rest, assigning 3x500 in 1:15 but with longer rests?)

[Joe Rubio]

I would say jogging is better than standing in every case except all out reps. The 400's hard w/ 60 sec standing rest is usually done at the end of the season when you are near the end of the season looking at the championship level races. Or stuff like 600 at mile race pace, 100 jog, 300 hard. Same for workouts w/ sustained rest intervals ie 30/40 drill or possibly mile reps with a 90 second recovery 400.

Joe