The five benefits of interval sessions

By Pete Cooper, Co-Founder of Coopah

Intervals, how wonderful they are! For anyone using Coopah’s running training plans, you will see that we love to chuck in a speed session each week?  Hate us for it?  Love us for it? 

Whatever your view is on intervals, we need to do them.  Sit back and read our quick five-minute recommendation of why there are benefits to interval sessions.

Don’t have 5 mins?  Read our 1 x 20 second sprint for just the high level reasons:

1. Burn more calories
2. Enhance your endurance!
3. Improve your VO2 Max
4. Get FASTER!
5. Smile and boast after!

1. Burns Calories 

Maybe you run for fun, maybe you are on a weight loss journey.  Whatever your ‘why’, there is a benefit we will all love from intervals and that is that you burn more calories!  With short burst of sprints, you burn calories at a much higher rate than you normally would as your heart rate is up.

2. Enhance your endurance

For those on our running training plans, you will know that our methodology is three key sessions, intervals, tempo and long run along with easy runs?  Why? Well, there is a book that could be written on why but one of the main reasons is to mix it up and ensure you are always testing your body.

The interval sessions help you to build up your pace and teach your body how to run at an intense pace and work through it.   You then recover for a minute or two and this helps your body recover much faster than normal.   This will naturally lead to you being able to run further.

3. Improve your VO2 Max

Firstly, wear a heart rate monitor and track your heart rate, if you see anything strange, seek medical attention.  We aren’t medical experts though so we will stop there.

How do intervals help?  They teach your heart how to beat fast enough to supply the whole body with oxygen. 

4. Get Faster

Naturally, you want a PB, this means you need to run faster than ever before!  This doesn’t come from just pounding the pavements at the same pace and distance every time.  This comes from a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

One of those sessions is interval sessions.  If you break up your efforts into shorter distances, this means you can work your body harder on each set which means you can gain confidence running at a faster than race pace.  Your body will remember this and start to react meaning on race day, your race pace will feel that little bit easier.

5. Smile and boast after

Without a doubt the most important one.  Don’t get too hung up on your PB, run firstly for enjoyment.  Running makes your feel good, running is therapy.  Therefore, when you’ve finished a hard session, sit back, smile and boast about the session on your Zoom calls.  You deserve it!

Looking for a plan to incorporate intervals?  Download Coopah today, pick a race distance of your choice along with your time goal and then set a date for that target PB.

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