If you are looking for a fitness program that is fun and effective then interval training might be the exercise routine that suits you. Interval workout is a combination of high and low intensity exercises. This means that after you do a heavy routine such sprinting you proceed to brisk walking or if you are lifting weights for a period of time you stop for a while and do biking instead.

Interval exercise effectively increases your speed and fitness quickly by elevating your heart quickly through the alternating intensities of your routines. And because interval workouts mix aerobic and anaerobic forms of exercise routines, you avoid experiencing nagging and pain to the muscles that usually accompanies an aerobic or anaerobic exercise done individually.

Doing basic sprints is one of the most common forms of interval training. To get the maximum benefits of sprints, you need to be able to keep the time short and the work to rest ratio high. Thus, a typical and effective sprint interval training is 20 seconds of sprinting and a full minute of resting. Rest, here, however, does not mean a cessation of movement. The heart rate is kept elevated by marching or briskly walking in place. Continuing this for 15 minutes is one intense workout for health, fitness and weight loss.

A variation of the basic sprint workout is running uphill. An incline of 30 to 40 degrees is enough to develop your body's power and acceleration. Sprint up quickly and jog down to recover, repeating the whole process for ten to twenty times if you can.

Plyometrics exercises allow the muscles to contract and expand in a fast manner. Bounding and jumping are types of plyometrics workouts that can be conducted anywhere for cardiovascular fitness and lower-body strength. In bounding, you jog at moderate speed for about a minute and then you "bound" off or skip with your arms up in the air alternately for about fifteen seconds. Plyometrics jumps, meanwhile, involve simply jumping exercises of increasing intensity. Characterized by a low squatting and then sudden jumping up in the air, you can do 20 low-intensity jumps for one minute followed by a rest period of about 5 minutes. Do 30 moderate-intensity jumps the next minute and then again followed by another 5 minute rest period. Finish this up by doing 50 high-intensity jumps.

One final form of plyometrics exercises is doing ladder drills. Nope, this does not involve an actual ladder, but to the long and thin rectangles painted on the floors of gyms. Workout on these drawn squares involve the formation of foot patterns, the simplest of which is to simply run through it for 30 seconds and then resting for a couple of minutes before proceeding at it again. The foot patterns can vary. You can hop on the first square, hope on the second and jump with both feet on the third. You can continue doing the exercises, alternating movements or doing other variations.

These workouts give you the chance to develop speed while adding zest to your workout routines. Those who are experiencing an exercise plateau will find that interval workouts is a way out of it.