Venus and Mars work out

It may not be conforming to the zeitgeist to say it, but there are differences between women and men. The exact nature of these differences can be debated around your dinner table tonight but in the meantime here is another difference to throw into the discussion: it appears that women and men exercise at different levels when they do interval training.

Interval training involves alternating short bursts of intense activity with less-intense forms of active recovery. In its most basic form, interval training might involve walking for two minutes, running for two, and alternating this pattern throughout the duration of a workout. It can help to avoid injuries that often accompany non-stop, repetitive activity. It also allows you to increase your exercise intensity without burning yourself out in a matter of minutes. The real advantage of interval training is that it utilises your body’s aerobic and anaerobic energy-producing systems. The aerobic system allows you to work out for several minutes/hours using oxygen to convert carbohydrates/fats into energy. The anaerobic system draws energy from carbohydrates (in the form of glycogen) stored in the muscles for short bursts of activity such as sprinting, jumping or lifting heavy objects.

Interval training is very popular for both men and women but this new study has shown that there is a difference in how the sexes do it.

The researchers in this study noted that previous interval training research tended to focus on highly trained males so their aim was to see how it affected women and men of a moderate fitness level. For the study subjects of both sexes aged between 19 and 30 were put through high intensity interval training where they worked out at their own pace.

The training involved running on a treadmill for six different four-minute intervals at the highest intensity they felt they could maintain. In between the four-minute sessions they had recovery sessions of one minute, two minutes or four minutes. Throughout the sessions their maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) and heart rate were measured.

While men self-selected a faster absolute pace on the treadmill than the women, the results showed that the women worked at a higher maximum heart rate and a higher VO2max.

As a side light the results also showed that a ration of 2:1 for work to rest was the ideal ratio for the interval training.

So women tend to work harder when they interval train than men. If that is an interesting finding and you feel spurred to exercise but feel that “interval training” sounds a bit passé as water cooler conversation perhaps you refer to your new passion as “fartlek” as it is known by the Swedes, which means “speed play”. So off you go for a spot of fartlek and ladies, if there’s a guy fartlekking next to you, then you can rest assured that your fartlek is probably more intense than his.