Today I got a bell from my old mate Gosso. We used to row together many moons ago and are still great drinking buddies. These are great nights out because, as the volume of alcohol builds up, so our recollection of victories past becomes clearer and the scale of our achievement grows even greater. In fact the drink has completely the opposite effect than that you would expect. Our perception becomes sharper so we can clearly understand each other even though our language is as clear as a Peruvian llama seller with a stutter.Anyway, he rang to say that he reads the newsletter in the company of colleagues from work who, having never rowed themselves, think I use too much rowing jargon. So it could be that a number of other people who have taken up indoor rowing don't know what I'm talking about. The problem is getting the balance right between not talking down to people and yet making sure they understand. So if you want clarification on any of the points in Tel's Tales, let us know; we want to hear from you so keep those letters and e-mails rolling in.The specific point at issue here is common amongst training generally and it concerns the term Interval Training:Once upon a time, some bright spark discovered that if you take a distance that you want to compete over and chop it up into smaller pieces, (intervals), you can complete those smaller pieces at a faster pace than if you were to do it in one go and, by training in this way, when you race at the proper distance you go faster. Then an even brighter bloke found out why this is and went on to discover that by varying the length of the intervals we can challenge individual energy supplies in the body. In the words of the late great Ian Dury There ain't half been a lot of clever physiologists and yet another one came along to discover that the sequence in which you carry out the interval training could also improve performance.The way to think of it is to say all forms of training are interval training. Whether there is one long interval of 20-30 minutes or multiples of a shorter duration.Sometimes long intervals are called Steady State Training. This is because on commencement of exercise the heart rate rises, speeding up the metabolism to meet the demands of the task. When the metabolic rate is equal to the task then the heart rate stabilises and a steady state is reached. Long intervals have the greatest training effect on the efficiency of the muscle. Medium length intervals have the greatest effect on the heart and lung functions, sometimes referred to as the cardio-vascular system, whilst short intensive intervals (sometimes called speed work), challenge the anaerobic energy system and improve lactate metabolism and tolerance.