Timer · preset of interval timer
20/40 interval timer
Twenty seconds of maximum effort with forty to recover. The long rest is the point, because it lets each burst be genuinely all out.
Open the full interval timer to change anything this preset fixes
The timer
- Work
- 20s
- Rest
- 40s
The clock runs fullscreen and keeps the screen awake. It needs JavaScript, so with scripting off the plan below is the whole session written out.
- Total
- 9:30
- Working
- 3:20
- Periods
- 20
- 01ReadyGet ready0:10
- 02WorkWork0:20
- 03RestRest0:40
- 04WorkWork0:20
- 05RestRest0:40
- 06WorkWork0:20
- 07RestRest0:40
- 08WorkWork0:20
- 09RestRest0:40
- 10WorkWork0:20
- 11RestRest0:40
- 12WorkWork0:20
- 13RestRest0:40
- 14WorkWork0:20
- 15RestRest0:40
- 16WorkWork0:20
- 17RestRest0:40
- 18WorkWork0:20
- 19RestRest0:40
- 20WorkWork0:20
·
0:00
How it works
Twenty on and forty off inverts the usual ratio, and it is built for one thing: repeated maximal efforts. The rest exists so the next twenty seconds can be as hard as the last one, which is only possible with real recovery in between.
The mistake is running it at conditioning pace. At a moderate effort, forty seconds of rest makes the session trivially easy and nothing improves. Go as hard as the movement safely allows and the ten rounds are plenty.
Ten rounds is ten minutes with just over three of them working. Judged by time it looks light. Judged by what those three minutes cost, it is one of the harder sessions here.
Watch for the drop-off. Power output falls across rounds even with generous rest, and once a round is clearly slower than the ones before it, the useful part of the session is over. Stopping there is better than adding rounds you cannot do at full effort.
Questions
- Why rest twice as long as you work?
- Because the work is meant to be maximal. Forty seconds recovers enough to sprint again, and a sprint you cannot repeat is a single effort rather than an interval session.
- Is this easier than 40/20?
- The session is shorter on work and much harder per round. If your twenty seconds is not close to everything you have, this split is being wasted.
- What should I run it on?
- Anything you can go maximal on safely. Bikes, rowers, sled pushes and hill sprints. Not technical lifts, and not anything where a maximal effort means a rushed rep.