[HIIT Cardio] – Why You Should Consider HIIT Workouts
How ya been?
Been doing your cardio lately?
Snuggle up with your blanky,
Get yourself a coffee,
Maybe a cup of tea,
How about some “bluebonic chronic that makes you choke, shit this ain’t no joke“…
Whatever floats your boat (Disclaimer: I don’t condone the usage of drugs in any way. Smoking can and will impair your cardio ability, among other things.)
[Well time to cut the shit and get on with the post...]
I’m going to be talking about HIIT Cardio (High Intensity Interval Training)
What is HIIT you might be wondering? - The basic premise is that instead of doing steady state cardio on a treadmill or bike where you’d spend all of 20-60 minutes at a steady pace you insert intervals of more intense (i.e High Intensity) efforts followed by slower recovery periods. That’s it… easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Why would you even consider HIIT Cardio?
For one it’s scientifically proven to improve heart health and cardiovascular performance significantly faster than conventional cardio. Second of all it also provides faster fat loss results. Lastly it takes less time to do than conventional cardio.
Anyone want?:
-Faster fat loss
-Faster results overall
-Improved VO2 Max
-Avoid muscle catabolism
-Improved Performance
-All of the above in half or sometimes much less than half the amount of time you’d spend doing conventional cardio workouts?
[There's no need to get all jumbled up with all the information on the net about HIIT training. If you've been doing any research you'll find tons of info to sink your teeth into but it's really quite simple.]
So by now I’m hoping you can see the value of HIIT cardio and why you should be incorporating HIIT training into your program.
Now here’s a quick rundown on the parameters of a HIIT cardio workout:
The Length Of The Sprint -
The shorter the sprint the harder you can push and the faster you can go but that will also be determined by how long you spend recovering in between the sprint intervals. For athletes that require more speed and power and participate in sports that involve shorter periods of intense activity and longer periods of rest (i.e Football [American Football that is], Competitive Sprinting) the length of the sprint should be kept low and rest periods should be kept high (3-6 minutes) and one should strive for maximal speed.
Note that when you perform short and more explosive sprinting this tends to fatigue the legs quite a bit and this should be taken into account when considering the weight training and cardio you will be doing the rest of the week. If you sprint at maximal speeds (50-100 meter sprints) I’d recommend limiting this kind of training to once a week if not less.
The Length of the Recovery Period-
This is determined by your goal, how good of shape you’re in, and how fast or slow you chose to go during the recovery period.
If you’re goal is fat loss then I’d recommend sprinting 45-60 seconds and making your rest periods 45-60 seconds.
When you’re just starting you may not be in the best of shape and after sprinting for a minute it might take you a while to gather your energies for the next sprint. So when you’re just starting I’d recommend walking slowly during the recovery period until you’re in good enough shape that you can jog during the recovery period and recover well enough for the next sprint. I’ve written a post that details a simple way to get started with HIIT workouts that you can check out here.
If you’re an athlete who participates in a sport that requires you to be constantly moving at a moderate pace with intermittent sprinting (Soccer players come to mind) I’d still recommend sprinting for 45-60 seconds with a recovery period of 45-60 seconds. With any kind of athletic training your training should mimic the actions that will be performed on the field.
Quick Note: This type of cardio is intense and it can be easy to over train so I would only do it 2-3 times a week.
HIIT Cardio Best Practice For Fat Loss:
So I’ve spoken about how to structure the sprint to rest ratio for your purposes.
You should start off by following the routine I outlined here until you get to the point that you can handle the intervals.
Once you do that I would strive to keep upping the intensity until you manage to decrease total workout time to 15-20 minutes.
Immediately after your intervals when you’re sucking wind and cursing at the sky I would slow down and walk at a moderate pace for an additional 30 minutes. Now I know said that HIIT cardio is the best form of cardio you could possibly do but this last step is the extra push to get you to really burn more fat.
You see when you perform intense intervals your body undergoes a slew of adaptations and one of the things that happens is your body releases fatty acids into your blood stream.
The general rule is that the more intense the cardio the more glycogen you deplete from your muscles and the slower you go with a lower heart rate the more of the calories you’re burning come from fat. So why not just walk your way to fat loss? Because the minuscule amount of calories you burn on an hour long walk would be instantly replenished with something as little as a handful of nuts, rendering the walk useless for the purpose of fat loss. But when you perform HIIT cardio you increase EPOC(Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption). Studies show that EPOC lasts a minimum of 38 hours after a HIIT cardio workout in essence helping you burn fat while you sit on your ass. So you can see that HIIT cardio still reigns supreme vs steady state cardio in terms of fat loss benefits.
But here’s how you can take your fat loss to the next level. Now that you’ve released the fatty acids by way of a killer HIIT cardio session you can take advantage of the slower cardio that tends to burn calories exclusively from fat by walking for 30 minutes right after you’re done with your intervals.
This Really Works
I’ve done this myself and have actually experimented with it on my clients. The verdict is in… this shit rocks. So do yourself a favor if you’re goal is fat loss and give this a try, you won’t regret it.
Until the next episode this is Sammy signing off…
This is just what I needed. I’ve been weening back and forth between working out and being lazy but this article on Hiit Cardio and the other you wrote just make it sound so simple…I guess in my head I was making things more complicated than they were. Thanks for the article! Ill definitely be on the lookout for whatever you put out!
Sammy,
Nice post man. I completely agree. When it comes to cardio, you will get much better results at a much quicker rate by implementing this strategy. I was blown away when I first started following my HIIT training with a 20-30 minute session of steady state cardio – the fat melts off!
If you’re really focusing on fat loss, I would consider entering your workout in a fasted state and waiting a good hour after your workout to eat. This isn’t the most efficient method to gaining muscle (not that you’ll lose any) but it sure melts the fat off.
– Kevin
I just tend to run for a predetermined time usualy 45 min- 1 hour. I feel like I couldn’t get that good of a workout doing such a short workout. I’ve googled “HIIT” and it seems to be some pretty legit stuff.
HIIT is great. I’m recovering from a knee injury so I’m just getting back into adding it to my workouts, but I get so much faster and burn fat faster if I do HIIT in addition to my steady state running. In fact, I just posted a beginner 12 week workout program to my blog, and I encourage sprints during the last 8 weeks of the training (once some basic cardio endurance has been acquired). Check it out sometime and tell me what you think if you get the chance! dedicatedfitness.blogspot.com
Sam — Dedicated fitness.
@ Sam from dedicated fitness,
Word…
High Intensity Interval Training is more efficient, and effective.
Sorry to hear about the Knee injury. I tore my Labrum on my left shoulder and I deal with it to this day.
Cool blog you got goin’ there man. Keep up the good work!
@ Tom
I’m glad I could help.
Hola Dave,
tengo 26 años de edad, soy de contextura gruesa y engordo con mucha facilidad, tengo unos 5´8 de estatura y unas 226 libras, acostumbro a hacer deportes con frecuencia (basketball y levantamiento de pesas) por lo que ademas tengo bastante masa muscular ligada con mucha grasa abdominal, lo que quiero saber como puedo hacer HIIT para mantener o aumentar mi masa muscular y ademas perder las libras de grasa para conseguir un peso adecuado, osea una combinacion con rutinas HIIT Cardio y HIIT de fuerza, gracias, es muy bueno este post.
Hello,
I have 26 years of age, I am of coarse texture and gain weight very easily, I have a 5’8 tall and about 226 pounds, accustomed to frequent sports (basketball and weight lifting) as I have enough muscle mass also linked with a lot of abdominal fat, I want to know how I can do HIIT to maintain or increase my muscle mass and also lose the pounds of fat to achieve a healthy weight, a combination with routine bone HIIT HIIT Cardio and strength, thanks very good this post, the answer in Spanish is best for me.
I like your site. Thanks for posting to mine. You may want to check my marketing health link on the site. I will be putting up an article this week on anti aging that is relevant to your users.
Most of us have the will to do things like loosing weight but as from personal experience,the problem is,consistency.
Excellent post Sammy, I have a couple questions…
Is it ok to do HIIT on alternate days of Strength Training?
I tried HIIT last week before reading this post. You said to start with 45 seconds, I did 30 second sprints followed by 30 second walking. I didn’t count my intervals but I did this routine for 15 mins excluding the warm-up. I got very exhausted and could not go full force after my 4th or 5th interval. It took me at least 30 mins afterwards to relax and fully catch my breath! Very Intense! Although my routines aren’t 45 seconds are 30 second intervals still valid for HIIT?
@Ryan
Yes it’s ok to to do HIIT the days after you lift. For some it might interfere with their leg training in which case you can do it right after the lifting. Either works.
And yes it seems you did it right. It’s fine if the intervals are only 30 seconds long. I just gave general guidelines for people to get started. If you’re not measuring the interval then I would at least strive to cover a bit more distance within the same time frame every other workout or so. Even a tiny bit more. Over time you’ll be covering more and more distance in the same amount of time, which will further rev your metabolism and get you in even better shape.
Glad you got it goin’!
@Worrell
True be that.
Most of the times that’s the very reason people fail to make progress.
@Anthony
I think this might hold the answer for you:
http://www.thefitnesschronicles.com/206/full-body-workout-routine/