It used to be enough to just get some heart-pumping exercise for 30-45 minutes a day.  “Wow,” friends would say.  “You’re taking care of yourself.  That’s great.”  And I would nod and smile, knowing that it was true.  The beauty of such generic “exercise” is that you don’t have to think about it much while you’re doing it.  You pick your chosen instrument of go-nowhere activity, get some sort of serious-sounding whirring noise and perspiration going, listen to your favorite music, set your timer, and enter a different dimension while the minutes tick by.  

My sister-in-law added a nice whimsical touch to that approach.  Instead of watching the time on her elliptical, she would keep an eye on the calories burned and ring a victorious bicycle bell with every 100-calorie increment.  “Woo-hoo!  300!  Now I get to have the glass of wine and handful of chips before dinner.”

But alas! I no longer feel the same sense of virtue for practicing my daily cardio jolt.   About six years ago, I got hit with the whole “What are you doing for strength training?” thing.  I read Body for Life, and I know the deal about keeping midlife muscle-mass entropy at bay.  I can accept that part of the equation, even though I’d rather not have to think about reps and sets and grams of daily protein.  There’s an input and a logical result to working one’s various muscle groups with some regularity.

Then, about a year ago, I started hearing the question, “Are you doing intervals?”  Huh?  “Ummmm, yes, I do long intervals of joyful, purpose-filled sitting punctuated by much shorter intervals of a highly artificial activity I like to call ‘exercise’.”

When I watched an episode of The Biggest Loser and saw what their version of “intervals” looked like, I gasped.  Jillian, the ferociously buff, feline-looking trainer on the show, has her face right next to the flushed, tear-filled face of the chubby, gasping contestant on the treadmill.  As the miserable-looking woman heaves herself forward in a lumbering attempt at a sprint, she groans and foams slightly at the mouth.  And Jillian screams, “More!  More!  Faster!  I don’t care if you vomit.  I don’t care if you keel over as long as that ASS SHRINKS!”

Intervals?  I think not.  Downright barbaric.  Sweat belongs in a workout, but not tears, drool, and flecks of foam on the lips.  And most certainly NOT vomit.

I ignored the interval trend and went on with my tried-and-true routine—the routine that, I might add, helped me back to pre-baby weight after my third and fourth children were born.  However, I was recently confronted with the alarming fact of my favorite jeans not zipping unless I lie flat on my bed to yank the fly up.  The first time this happened I told myself I’d just left them in the dryer too long.  But the scale does not lie. I glared at those newly arisen muffin-tops in the mirror—and when they insolently jiggled back at me, I went looking for advice from a trainer I know.

After getting the usual spiel on reps, sets, and squats, I received the following interval “recipe” from my friend who clearly works with people more disciplined than I:

As for the cardio, try warming up for 10 mins, then for 5 mins, sprint for 30 seconds, jog for 30 seconds. Thats 5 sprints!!! Then another 10 mins later, repeat the sprint cycle. Finish with 10 min cool down. Tha’ts 40 mins total. Do this at night, or as late in the day as you can.

Erm, sure.  No problem at all.  Shortly before bedtime I will perform this choreographed series of perfectly timed little sprints and jogs.  And all night long my pumped-up metabolism will be gnawing away at the flab.  Insomnia?  No problem.  Because, after all, sleep should only happen in intervals anyway.

Of course, I can grumble smugly about intervals all I want.  Grumbling won’t get me back into my favorite jeans.  And so I am bowing to the interval trend and admitting that perhaps there is something to it.  I’ve set my elliptical for the “hill workout,” and for 40 minutes each morning, I alternate between a happy jog and tongue-lolling sprints.  I’ll report in six weeks or so whether I can zip the fly without lying on the bed.  Until that time I’ll be muttering “Intervals schmintervals” as my body rebels against the never-before-introduced concept of the sprint.