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Newsletters>
Fartlek Training (Speedplay)
January 17, 2008
Whether you are coming off of winter maintenance training
or whether you are just about to start training for your
first triathlon, at some point you are going to pick up the
intensity of your workouts. The perfect way to introduce
your body to training at varying intensities is to add
fartlek training into your weekly routine early in your
training season.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, the word fartlek
is Swedish for "speedplay" and has been a training
technique used by distance runners for many years. In
essence a fartlek workout includes short bursts of higher
intensity efforts interspersed between steady state aerobic
efforts. The periods of high intensity work can vary
throughout the workout or be maintained at a fixed
interval. In general these efforts range in duration from
30 seconds up to 5 minutes.
Although commonly associated with run workouts, fartlek
training can also be used successfully for cycling and
swimming workouts. The following are examples of some
fartlek workouts you can use...
On the indoor trainer, start by warming up with a spin on
an easy gear for 10 minutes. The fartlek set will begin
with a 30 second acceleration until you are maintaining a
high cadence (i.e. greater then 120rpm). Pedal easy for
90 seconds and repeat the acceleration/recovery cycle 6
times adding 10 seconds to both the acceleration and the
recovery period each cycle. Cool down with 10 minutes of
easy spinning.
If you have a coach with you at a workout, you can also do
a whistle fartlek set. After an appropriate warm up you
wait for your coach's whistle to accelerate your pace when
the coach whistles again you can return to steady state
aerobic pace. This can be repeated with several intervals
of varying length as well as with varying lengths of
recovery periods between accelerations. This type of
fartlek set can be used in the pool, on a track or on an
indoor trainer.
In the pool, you can do a long swim set of continuous
swimming where you increase your speed for 1 to 2 lengths
at a time. An example of this might be swim easy to
moderate effort for 150m then swim 50m hard effort,
repeating for 10 cycles will give you a 2000m workout.
While trail running, warm up for 10 minutes then start with
a 45 second acceleration. Over the next 20 minutes, repeat
the 45 second acceleration every 3-5 minutes. Cool down
with 10 minutes of easy running.
When introducing fartlek training, try to ensure the set is
at least 20 minutes in duration. The warm up and cool down
should be in addition to the 20 minutes of fartlek interval
training.
Good Luck and Happy Training
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