Weddingbee Blog

I have used fartlek’s for as long as I can remember! I’ve actually quasi-done a fartlek during a race and ended about 1:30 faster. yay!

Fartlek is Swedish for “Speed Play”

I did this type of training regularly as part of my anaerobic training for track as a middle distance runner.

The idea is behind it to condition the body’s anaerobic energy systems, specifically how the body handles lactic acid build up which in turn increases your stamina.

Runner have been doing this kind of workout for decades (since the 30s and especially in the 60s when Arthur Lydiard incorporated it as part of his training scheme for the various Olympic champion runners from New Zeland he coached and while popularizing the running boom of the 70s) . It’s not until the past 10 years have the fitness crowd caught up once is was discovered that these kind of high intensity workouts actually were more efficient in burning calories, especially after working out as the body recovers from the workout effort.

Farklets are sometimes confused with intervals. The terms are somewhat interchangeable whereas the man difference being that a farklet is meant to be a continuous run with no stops where an interval can have a prescribed rest period where you stop running.

Also the original intent with a farklet was to not have a prescribed structured workout. It was to be subjective to how the runner felt that day and even during the workout. So one workout could consist of a 30 second, 2 minute and 4 minute bursts at varying intensities. The idea was to force the body to adapt to varying paces off of a steady pace so it could better respond to race situations. This same principle is incorporated in workout routines like P90X and they call it “muscle confusion.”

Finally, one of the reasons why this works so well its the body’s adaptation to these workouts. By varying the pace intensity and distance the body is inclined to adapt toward what it demanded of it. For a running it wants to be as strong as possible and as light as possible. So its response is to make existing muscle as strong as possible while retarding weight gain. This translates to increased metabolism due to your legs gaining more strength and more defined muscle mass. Because they are among the largest muscle group in the body they will help you burn more calories at rest.