The self-perceived load (percentage of maximum heart rate) during training should be the same whether you are an elite athlete, a healthy 40-year-old, or a heart patient.
Professor of medicine, Jan Helgerud, believes that going downhill is fantastic exercise. This form of exercise is the most common form of exercise for most people. 4×4 interval training is already practiced today by everything from heart patients to Olympic medal winners. The self-perceived load (percentage of maximum heart rate) during training should be the same whether you are an elite athlete, a healthy 40-year-old, or a heart patient.
Walking uphill
Walking uphill saves your legs, knees and hips - it's a nice and gentle start, and for those most people will want walking uphill to be effective exercise for the rest of their lives. When you train 4x4 intervals, you ensure that you achieve full filling of the heart within the first two minutes. When you have fully filled your heart, you are about halfway through the 4-minute interval.
At this point you are breathing heavily but without feeling discomfort. To get the maximum benefit from your workout, you need to stay at this workout intensity for the last 2 minutes of the interval. This is long enough for the heart to get a proper workout, and short enough so that you don't get exhausted. If you do this 4 times, you have found the recipe.
Endurance training
If you want to increase your endurance, you can increase the intensity by starting to jog, or find a steeper uphill. Read here to test your level before starting the next interval session. Make sure that you carry out the training correctly, and find out your biological age with Myworkout GO you too.