Anaerobic benefit query

5 minute intervals are very long. The longest intervals we run at our gym is 4 minutes. The shortest ones are 20 seconds. 
The sequence I suggested has 16 intervals, but you can of course make it longer if you want. It has only 8 minutes of running, but it will be faster running than you are used to. 

Remember to hold on to the treadmill with your hands when jumping on and off.

ovekvam, alright let me try this next saturday see what happens. I will report. At this juncture I'm just trying to understand what it is that Garmin is doing.

ovekvam said:

Remember to hold on to the treadmill with your hands when jumping on and off.

yes 

At first how ovekvam  said - you don't need the highest possible HR, you need a low average and high peaks. Some errors you make on your graph -  32 min warm up on such a high HR (>160 is way too high)- are not good. You can't lower your hr after such a load. I would do a hr 110-120 for 10-15 min as a warming up. Then your ints say 7 x 30 sec at touching zone 5 HR? In a pause slow down slowly until you walk. Try to lower your average HR.  Should work. Treadmills are not really comfortable for intervals, plus garmin can't really calculate it well. You need stryd and calibrating outdoor... but... it is better than nothing. Good luck 

global_local said:

you need a low average

global_local thanks for the input, appreciate it.

Ha, ok. So my first 30min period @160 obviously jams with the above objective. It is part of my Saturday morning routine to improve my VO2Max (Monday to Friday are 5 sessions of zone 2 training on the rowing machine and elliptical, alternatively). But, I could strip this bit out (and do it some other time during the week) and replace it with your suggestion of 10-15min at HR110-120.

Just as an FYI, there are 3 reasons why I am wary of jogging outside: (i) 2 of my friends destroyed their knees and I'm a bit paranoid about this, I "believe" that jogging on the treadmill will spare my knees more, (ii) it's soon going to be pretty hot where I live in Hong-Kong and jogging out in the intense heat and high humidity is unpleasant (perhaps not very healthy either), and (iii) I am recovering from ITBS (IT band syndrome), it took a long time to go away with a lot of dedicated exercises etc, I think it's pretty much gone but I don't want it to come back so anything I can do to make my jogs easier on my knees, I will prefer. This is just to give you the reasons, otherwise I have no issue jogging outdoor.

There is another potential issue that I realise only now: I jog with a treadmill with an inclination of 3%, not flat. The reason is to get my heart pumping at comparatively slower running speed (I am under the impression that it makes the jogs easier on my knees, but perhaps I am not correct about that, if you guys have an opinion about this, let me know). At the very least, the fact that I jog with this inclination should make calculations of my TE by Garmin (even more) imprecise !

In any case guys, I think I get the gist of what you're saying and should be able to do "something" that works better now.

Ok fellas I think I finally unlocked the secret of this anaerobic benefit lol... Went to the gym this morning, did my usual daily zone 2 on the rowing machine (45min), rested for 10 minutes, then did the intervals pretty much as suggested by ovekvam above: 45 seconds run at high speed (the treadmill accelerates for the first 15 seconds so effective running time at cruising speed is 30 seconds only). Then wait whatever it takes to go back to 124. Rince and repeat. I think this is what I was looking for. Thanks guys, will incorporate that in my weekly program.

As a side note, Garmin says my recovery time is 88 hours .

ovekvam said:

The longest intervals we run at our gym is 4 minutes. The shortest ones are 20 seconds. 
The sequence I suggested has 16 intervals, but you can of course make it longer if you want.

As far as you are concerned, how do you do it ? I am asking because both you and global_local have suggested 30sec intervals, I've done a bit of research and 4minx4min seems more popular (but doesn't mean it's better !). I should clarify that the goal is to increase VO2Max.

I have tried 3minx3min yesterday (this means I didn't wait for my HR to drop to the mid 20s. It initially did, but by the end, the 3min rest would bring it down to 130-135 only).

I seem to have gotten more benefit than last week session, although I appreciate of course that the actual running time is much longer.

I like 4x4 myself, with 3 minute rest between. But most of my interval sessions are led by some instructor at a local gym, so I follow their setup. It can be 1+2+3+4+3+2+1 (pyramid), hills, or speed progression. With speed progression, we start with 2-4 minutes, and work ourselves down gradually to 30 or 20 seconds, increasing our running speed. 

Typically the rest time is half the running time, and total running time is 15-20 minutes.

The triathlon guys in my club use longer intervals (up to 8 minutes), and longer total running time. 

Ok thank you !

Fellas. So this morning I went for an HIIT session but this time, did it on the elliptical instead of the treadmill. It isn't an equipment I am very familiar with for HIIT so I could only do 5 intervals before having to stop (also had 45min zone 2 just before). See below. The Aerobic benefit looks right to me, but not the Anaerobic one. The intervals are exactly the same as last time, as in 3 minutes comfortably in zone 5, followed by 3 minutes rest. This time, in order to make sure my HR goes down quick, I sat on a chair as opposed to just standing. It worked, because within the 3 minutes of rest that way my HR was going from its peak of 165 down to 115 roughly. Of course the one big difference with last time is that I did 5 intervals instead of 10. But still.

Does someone have a theory for the low Anaerobic benefit ? Since last time I got an Anaerobic benefit of over 4 with 10 of these intervals on the treadmill, I was expecting a benefit of around 2 this time, doing 5 only. Well, about half.