REACH YOUR PEAK

01 Harder, leaner, faster It’s commonly known that higher-intensity efforts help to raise your anaerobic and functional thresholds, resulting in a higher sustainable speed. What’s often forgotten is that harder efforts strike a match through fat stores, too, but just how much? More specifically, how does high-intensity interval training compare to the traditional fatburning template of longer, lower-intensity sessions? It was a question posed by Muhammad Atakan and his team at Victoria University, Melbourne, in a recent edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine using “18 fairto-good-quality papers” on the subject. “Our findings conclude that high-intensity intervals are effective at increasing fat oxidation among adults, with the expected coming in at around 0.04 and 0.12g/min,” the authors wrote. “This is comparable with moderate-intensity continuous training but requires two times lower time commitment.”…