Let me start out by saying that I hate running. Unfortunately I’ve always seen running/cardio as a necessary evil when trying to lose weight and get toned, so a couple times a week I’ll do 20-30 minutes of cardio, whether it be treadmill, elliptical, whatever.

The one thing I have been able to tolerate over the years however has been sprinting. I’ve been playing soccer and skiing for the majority of my life, so I’ve always been a decent short distance runner, but I still hate running distances with a passion. Luckily sprinting is a great way to get in shape, even better than distance running I would argue.

Benefits: Here’s the thing about running…it only raises your metabolism and burns fat while you’re running and for a short time thereafter. Sprinting burns a ton of calories and also can keep your metabolism up literally for days. This process is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and is your bodies natural reaction to such an intense training session.

The Workout: There are a whole bunch of different ways you can do this and it really just depends on what kind of shape your in. Start wherever you’re comfortable and just keep working your way up. For starters I would go to a regulation 400m track. You can run either 50m or 100m sprints and then walk or lightly jog the rest of the way around the track until you get back to the start and go into another sprint. I would start out with around 5 laps if you don’t do a lot of cardio and keep trying to work up until you reach whatever goal you feel comfortable with, 10 laps is my magic number.

Even if you don’t want to try the sprint workout and you just want to do some distance running, I would still say go to a track if you can, it’s just a better experience. If it’s nice outside you can work up a real nice sweat, you’re not just staring at the same spot on the same wall, not going anywhere for half an hour, and to be perfectly honest, treadmills just aren’t good for your knees, you need something that’s gunna cushion your legs more. So anyway, sprinting is a real intense workout and you should definitely give it a shot.