Sprints and Interval training
Fitness fads come and go. Depending on who one talks to or what one reads, the recommended exercise routine for adults keeps changing. The latest one doing the rounds is the importance of sprint and interval training and the photograph is from a recent session.
30 minutes on the treadmill with eight sprints timed about 90 seconds apart took me back to school. Our school in Bombay (now called Mumbai), Arya Vidya Mandir was a series of classrooms in a four floor building. There was no open space or playground. So our school had a tie up with a local sports association - ''Balkanji Bari''. This open ground and space, which we went to every Thursday gave us an opportunity to experiment and run freely. It's where we did our first sets of interval and sprint training.
These sessions were well organized, where the entire class was split into four teams. Over a course of three to four hours, we sprinted and took part in a series of relay races. Complete with a baton. Some relay races had an obstacle course. The length varied from 25 meters to 100 meters. No smartwatches or rings to measure our heart rate. Instead the voice of our gym teacher asking us to run as fast as we can! Till we could literally ''hear'' the sound of our heartbeat outside our body.
These weekly sprinting sessions, complete with frequent intervals were setting us up for endurance sports or just the ability to go for long walks without feeling tired.
Interval and sprint training was a big part of our childhood in primary and playschool. Grateful for the foundation that was set in those early years!