Summing up - it's not the QUANITITY, but the QUALITY of your cardio time that is key here...
If you can't get your mitts on the BFL book for whatever reason, well, there's lotsa good stuff on the 'net...how 'bout this from Krista Scott Dixon's site:
http://www.stumptuous.com/fartlek.html - here's the start of the article...
Quote:
Hey, what's so funny about the word "fartlek"? You kids just quit laughing. I said quit it!! Stop laughing right now or I'll turn this car right around then you'll all be sorry!!!
Seriously (quit snickering, you in the back, or else), fartlek training is Swedish for "speed play" ("fart" = speed; "lek" = play, which makes one wonder... do Swedish cops give tickets for farting?). It was originally developed by and for runners, as a looser alternative to their highly structured timed interval training. I use it here more broadly to refer to any combination of high and low intensity work. I also use "interval training" as a synonym for fartlek, although the two are not precisely the same. But I fartlek in the general direction of anyone who complains about my inaccurate terminology, ha ha.
Why interval or fartlek training at all? A few reasons come to mind. First, fartlek is extremely effective for our purposes as a fat loss and general conditioning tool. Interval training has been shown to be the most effective fat burning form of cardio, even more effective than either high or low intensity aerobic training. The exact mechanism of how this works is still unclear, since interval training does not burn as many calories as the other two methods, but it is thought that interval training creates a significant oxygen debt, which signals to the body to preferentially burn fat after the workout. In Tremblay's 1994 study on interval training, it was found that small amounts of interval training were greatly superior in terms of fat loss to much longer periods of low-intensity cardio.
The second reason to do fartlek is that it is fun! If you're sick of bland monotony on the stairmaster, or endless boring rounds of the local track, then this is for you! Fartlek is both a great mental and physical challenge. Since it is very adaptable, you can make it as gentle or as arduous as you like, though I warn you: even at the "crybaby" level of difficulty, this is still a tough workout. But, if you've learned anything at all from reading this site, it's that tough is good! Tough gets results!!
Originally, as I said, fartlek was developed for runners. However, the principle of fartlek can be applied to a variety of chosen activities. Since with my crunchy knees I don't run unless a person with an axe is chasing me, I have to find other options. One of them is stair climbing. I have a long stone staircase near my house, and I just run up and down it, so that high intensity (up) is alternated with lower intensity (down). Simple, but a very effective use of 20 minutes. If you live in an apartment building and don't feel like going to the gym one day, just take on the stairs in your building.
So, how to develop your own fartlek program? The basis of fartlek is to alternate periods of high intensity work with periods of low intensity work. These periods can be of set duration, or you can just do them randomly. They can be as short as 10-20 seconds or as long as 5 minutes. To add intensity, you can increase speed or difficulty of the exercise. For example, you could run up and walk down a hill. You can alternate sprinting on a track, street, or field with slow jogging or walking. Or, you can simply adjust the difficulty level on your cardio machine. As you get better at it, figure out ways to add more resistance. Try a weighted knapsack as you run up hills, for example.
The article continues with some basic fartlek (interval) programs to follow (of course the BFL "20MAS" is another example). Basically it's all HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) that we're talking about. Of course, if you want to add more activity to your day - horseback riding, bike riding, walking the dog, 'indoor sports'
whatever then go for it - just save those 10's for your HIIT sessions IMO!
so If you cant fit it into your schedual, do it later.
