Fitness

How Tempo Run Workouts Can Make You Faster

Published

2 years ago

November 5, 2024

How Tempo Run Workouts Can Make You Faster

When you first get into running, your routine probably looks something like this: Lace up the best running shoes you own, hit a quick warmup, and then hit the road for a set time, distance, or route. Simply running a few times a week and intuitively speeding up and slowing down might be enough to improve your fitness—at least at first. Once you decide to graduate from a trot around your neighbourhood into the world of more serious training, you’ll need to approach your workouts with more intention and specificity.

One common training technique used by hobbyists and world-class runners alike is the tempo run, a protocol where you run at a near-maximal intensity. Using these workouts you’ll increase muscular and cardiovascular endurance, learn to maintain running mechanics at a faster clip, and teach your body to cycle through lactic acid (which is what causes that burning sensation) more efficiently.

We tapped Jes Woods, a Nike Running coach and the Head Trail & Ultra Coach at the Brooklyn Track Club, to school you on all things tempo runs so you can better understand how to implement tempo runs into your running routine. We can’t say you’ll be thanking us (at least mid-run)—but you may just become the fastest guy in your local run club.

What Is a Tempo Run?

According to Woods, a tempo run is a hard but controlled pace that can be run as intervals, or a steady run spanning one to 10 miles meant to make you a more efficient runner. Tempo runs should feel, ‘comfortably hard,’ according to Woods. ‘If your running buddy asked you a question while running your tempo run, you could answer them if you had to, but it would be pretty annoying.’

Woods says tempo runs can have a variety of loose definitions but, put most simply, they’re threshold runs meant to improve your lactate threshold. ‘That is, the tipping point between aerobic running (your body has sufficient oxygen) and anaerobic running (your body does not have sufficient oxygen to create the energy you are demanding),’ she says. ‘You want to run at that tipping point without crossing over.’

In short: A tempo run is not easy, and that’s by design. This type of workout is a training tool that pushes you to your limits to increase your cardiovascular capacity, help you acclimate to a faster race day speed, and improve your body’s ability to clear lactate.

Getty Images

How to Do a Tempo Run

Tempo runs are challenging, but they’re simple to execute. Woods says that a proper race programme (specifically for distances like marathons and half-marathons) should include one to two weekly speed sessions. The first is a straight speed or interval session and the second being what she calls ‘speed and strength,’ which consists of either a hill workout, Fartlek runs, or tempo runs. For her athletes, Woods programs one tempo run every other week on average.

Calculate Your Pace

There are a few ways to find your pace for a tempo run. The least scientific is to run at a pace at which you can no longer comfortably hold a conversation with another person. Woods says this should be between your 10-kilometre and 10-mile race pace.

You can also sustain a pace that keeps you between 75 to 85 percent of your max heart rate. The simplest way to do this is to subtract your age from 220 (although there are other more accurate methods, for most runners this will do). You’ll need a fitness tracker or heart rate monitor to use this method.

Lastly, Woods likes the VDOT calculator. ‘Simply plug in a recent race distance and time, and the calculator will best guess your equivalent race pace at any and all other distances (and hit the Training tab to see your predicted threshold pace),’ she explains.

Warmup

Dynamic Stretches

These types of movements will get your body primed for running better than static holds. ‘Hold each of these stretches for a few seconds before switching to the other side,’ says Woods. ‘You can even perform these while walking forward or I like to use those ‘stuck at stoplights moments’ for dynamic stretches instead of checking my phone or jogging in place.’

Stretches Woods likes: Knee hugs, quad pulls, hamstring scoops, table toppers, lateral lunges and air squats. Do five reps on each side of your body per movement.

Warmup Jog

Never jump straight into your tempo work, even if you’ve done some dynamic stretching.

‘Before any speed run, whether it’s fast intervals around the track or hill repeats in the park, an easy jog warm up is mission critical,’ says Woods. Run for 10 to 15 minutes at a conversational pace before diving into the workout.

Hit the Road

The classic tempo run is straightforward enough. After you warm up, you’ll aim to run for 20 to 30 minutes at your calculated pace. If you’re new to tempo workouts or at the beginning of a new training cycle, Woods suggests running at your tempo pace in intervals to work up to a longer unbroken run. Here are two interval methods:

Straight-Up Intervals

‘Start with five 5-minute intervals at your tempo run pace, with 90 second breaks after each,’ says Woods. ‘That’s 25 minutes of tempo work, but broken into smaller bite-sized chunks. You can gradually increase those tempo intervals over time until you’re holding your tempo pace for 10 minutes, 15 minutes and eventually 25 continuous minutes.’

Floating Intervals

Think of this approach as the next step up to a continuous tempo workout.

‘The float is an active recovery, but not an easy shuffle jog like you would on the track in order to run your next interval hard,’ explains Woods. ‘If you were to assign a pace to it, ‘float’ is around your marathon pace plus 15 seconds, so you’re trying to recover from your tempo interval at an easier but respectable pace. A specific example would be: three 3-kilometre intervals at your tempo run pace with a 1-kilometre recovery run between each interval.’

Jordan Siemens

The Benefits of Tempo Runs

No one will argue that tempo runs work when it comes to making you faster (and tougher). That said, details matter, so here are three specific ways this tried-and-true running protocol makes you better.

Better Endurance

Running is a volume game. Typically, you’ll become a better runner by, well, running—more specifically, by accumulating more mileage and progressively running at a faster pace. Tempo runs help bolster your cardiovascular capacity by forcing you to sustain a relatively intense pace for a moderate amount of time.

‘Improving your tempo pace or improving your lactate threshold is like improving your miles per gallon on your car,’ Woods says. ‘You want to be able to travel (run) farther on the same tank of gas (the same energy).’

Any form of running is going to improve your VO2 max, which is a measure of how much oxygen you can utilise during intense exercise. Naturally, a tempo run, an intentionally strenuous running workout, will improve your VO2 max and, therefore, your ability to run faster for longer.

More specifically, your heart rate should be beating between 80 to 90 percent of your max (putting you in what are considered heart rate Zones 3 and 4), which are associated with improving your anaerobic and aerobic capacities. Having endurance in both zones is imperative for running at a high intensity.

Improved Lactate Threshold

Once you enter Zone 4 in your workout, which you’re all but guaranteed to do during a hard run or race, your body taps into your anaerobic system, where it utilises glycogen and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for energy. Lactic acid, a byproduct of that process, will begin to accumulate inside your muscles—and it’s responsible for the burning sensation anyone who has sprinted or performed 20-rep squats knows all too well.

You cannot stop the production of lactic acid, which can hinder you during a run—but you can acclimate to the burning sensation and, as you get fitter, clear the lactate more quickly. Because tempo runs put you into that anaerobic training zone, it’s a great way to train through lactic acid build-up and mimic what you will feel like come race day.

‘You are pushing that lactate threshold pace to be a little bit faster with it still feeling like the same effort,’ explains Woods. ‘By raising that threshold, everything is getting faster—your marathon pace, the easy runs—as you become a more efficient runner.’

Andrew Gutman is a journalist with a decade of experience covering fitness and nutrition. His work has been published in Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Muscle & Fitness, and Gear Patrol. Outside of writing, Andrew trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, helps coach his gym’s kickboxing team, and enjoys reading and cooking.

Jes Woods is a running coach in New York City who serves as a Nike run coach, the Brooklyn Track Club Ultra and Trail head coach, and a Chaski Endurance coach.

Click to comment

Fitness

Exercise Icons Of The ’70s Who Were So Ahead Of Their Time – Health Digest

Published

8 hours ago

May 12, 2026

Press Room

Exercise Icons Of The ’70s Who Were So Ahead Of Their Time – Health Digest

Charles Mcquillan/Getty Images

The 1970s are known for being the golden era of fitness. “There was the birth of exercise science,” Danielle Friedman recalled about the decade during a January 2025 episode of NPR’s news and politics podcast, “All Things Considered.” But that’s not all, according to the journalist; there was also a move toward self-improvement. “The 1970s — the writer Tom Wolfe famously dubbed it the Me Decade,” she explained. “After the kind of activism of the ’60s, Americans and baby boomers in particular were turning toward themselves, were sort of, in many cases, shifting away from trying to save the world to trying to improve themselves.”

Naturally, many exercise aficionados led the charge, pioneering the movement with fitness regimens that were far ahead of their time. From Arnold Schwarzenegger’s affinity for bodybuilding to Farrah Fawcett’s love of jogging to Jane Fonda’s ballet barre workouts and even Judi Sheppard Missett’s creation of Jazzercise, these exercise icons blazed a path and put some of the world’s most popular workouts on the map!

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love of bodybuilding proved to be contagious

Bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger training actress Sally Field on the rowing machine.

Bettmann/Getty Images

While it’s clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger is no stranger to controversy and scandal, it’s hard to deny that he was on to something way back in the 1970s with his intense weightlifting regimen. As you may recall, Schwarzenegger practically became a celebrity overnight with the release of “Pumping Iron,” a 1977 bodybuilding documentary that followed him and his rival, Lou Ferrigno, as they prepared to compete in the Mr. Olympia competition. Spoiler alert: Schwarzenegger comes out victorious in the end. But, perhaps even more noteworthy, was the way he drew many other people to weightlifting, too.

Fast forward many years later, and we now know that strength training can improve 13 health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and even depression and anxiety. And, according to a study using mice and published in The FASEB Journal in May 2021, weight lifting every day may also shrink fat cells.

Farrah Fawcett made jogging cool

Tom Wargacki/Getty Images

While it may be hard to believe, there was a time long ago when people were judged, ridiculed, and even bullied for jogging. No, really. “Cars would go by, windows would roll down and either taunts or empty beer cans would come flying out,” the 1968 Boston Marathon winner, Amby Burfoot, recalled during an interview with The New York Times in January 2025. “There was no respect,” Burfott added.

Thankfully, that all changed once the famous “Charlie’s Angels” actress Farrah Fawcett came on the scene and made jogging cool. Per Vogue, Fawcett’s daily exercise routine wasn’t complete without a one-mile jog, followed by time in the sauna and jacuzzi. “The only way I can release my day’s tensions is not with a drink or a visit to some Beverly Hills shrink, but with something so taxing to my muscles that I fall asleep from body exhaustion instead of a mental wipeout,” she was quoted as saying. “You’d be surprised; after you push your body to its fullest, your daily problems hardly have time to affect you,” she added.

And as it turns out, Fawcett was on to something. According to a study conducted by Professor Larry Tucker of the Department of Exercise Sciences at Brigham Young and published in 2017 in Preventive Medicine, routine running habits can help slow down the aging process.

Jane Fonda was doing ballet barre workouts way before they were mainstream

Jane Fonda during a class at the opening of the 'Workout' exercise gym in Beverly Hills, California

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Dare we say Jane Fonda was the OG ballet barre workout enthusiast?! Fonda first started working on her famous ballet-inspired workout routines way back in the 1970s. “People respond differently to various types of movement, to different workout speeds, even to different kinds of music. I like ballet and what it does for me — the slowness, the rigor, the sense of creativity while I move,” she told Vogue in 1979. Later, Fonda went on to open her very own gym and release workout videos. And, well, the rest is simply history. “I remember thinking, Oh, God, wouldn’t it be great if I could sell 25,000 [tapes]? Three million tapes later, we created an industry,” she declared during a 1987 interview for “Good Morning America” (via Analog Indulgence).

Today, ballet barre classes are still all the rage. “Barre requires you to keep your core engaged at all times. So that means while you are working your arms, legs, and booty, your abs are working as well,” Bergen Wheeler, the national director of Core Fusion talent development and senior teacher at Exhale Spa, explained during a 2017 interview with Self about what happens when you do barre workouts every day.

Judi Sheppard Missett created a fitness program and an entire community

Judi Sheppard Missett, the founder of Jazzercise, leading a class inside her Jazzercise Fitness Studio

Bob Riha Jr/Getty Images

We would be absolutely remiss not to discuss famous Jazzercise creator Judi Sheppard Missett while talking about 1970s exercise icons who were light-years ahead of their time. According to Sheppard Misset, she first came up with the idea for the workout in 1969. “I had been at Northwestern University, working professionally as a dancer, and teaching dance class, and lo and behold, I came up with an idea that I thought would be great, and 50 years later, here we are. That idea was Jazzercise, and we pioneered a whole industry, the fitness industry,” Sheppard Misett recalled in a video on the company’s YouTube account.

Sadly, Jazzercise is one of many fitness trends that have completely disappeared. But that certainly doesn’t negate the wonderful health benefits of the workout routine. Emily Jones says she lost a whopping 90 pounds doing Jazzercise while gaining so much more. “I was kind of apprehensive, because with the history of Jazzercise, you tend to think of leg warmers, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that,” Jones told “TODAY” in March 2021. But Jones claimed that after just one session, she was hooked. “I walked in and I was like yeah, this is it, I love it,” she recalled. In fact, she loved it so much that she decided to become a Jazzercise instructor herself. “It’s so fulfilling. We’re not clique-y and ‘all about me,’ but it’s just genuinely our own little family (at our location),” Jones explained about the community aspect. “I’ve taught a woman in her 80s, and she’s brought me cookies and held my children.”

Fitness

This simple strength training trick builds more muscle and better technique—here’s how to try tempo training in your next home workout

Published

20 hours ago

May 11, 2026

Press Room

This simple strength training trick builds more muscle and better technique—here’s how to try tempo training in your next home workout

Of all the exercise techniques I use when training clients (and myself), slowing down the movements is one of my favorites. And I’m not the only fan.

“Tempo training is excellent because it increases time under tension,” says Steven Chung, physical therapist at VSI Spine Solutions in Reston, Virginia.

“Slowing down your reps—especially during the eccentric lowering phase—forces your muscles to work longer per rep, which is a major driver of muscle growth (hypertrophy) and strength.”

Tempo training workout for beginners

Chung has chosen “compound, functional movements that we perform on a day-to-day basis.” You will need dumbbells for some of the moves. The five exercises are:

Goblet squat
Push-up
Split squat
Romanian deadlift
Floor press

“Squatting mimics daily tasks like sitting, standing and lifting heavy objects. The push-up and dumbbell floor press target the chest, shoulders, triceps and core, which mimics daily tasks like pushing doors open.

“Split squats mimic the unilateral (single-sided) nature of running, sprinting and jumping, helping people improve performance in these areas. They also mimic the daily task of kneeling down to tie your shoe or to get to a lower cabinet.

“Romanian deadlifts require proper hip-hinge movement, which improves the mechanics and efficiency when lifting heavy items.”

Chung suggests employing a 3-2-1 tempo. To put that into practice:

Take 3 seconds to lower: this part of the exercise is known as the eccentric phase, where the muscle lengthens under tension.
Pause for 2 seconds: this part of the exercise is known as the isometric phase, the static pause between the muscle lengthening and shortening.
Take 1 second to lift: this part of the exercise is known as the concentric phase, when the muscle is shortening.

Chung suggests aiming for between three and five sets, with six to eight reps in each set, and a one to two minute rest break between sets.

Start at the lowest end of the range, then gradually add more reps or sets over subsequent workouts as you get stronger.