Whenever we think of cardio, most of us immediately think of:
jogging, aerobics or jumping on the elliptical and pretending you're a gliding superhero.
Only recently have we started shifting our mindset to other options.
By and large, one of the most popular alternative cardio is
"High Intensity Interval Training" aka "HIIT"
And at this point of the debate, it is very clear that "HIIT" should and will have
a mainstay in the discussion of being an effective fitness strategy alongside your traditional cardio.
And I can sit here and discuss all of the research showcasing the benefits of HIIT
for not only weight and fat loss, but also performance
but...errr you know what?
Let's point out some.
Like the study that found HIIT inducing similar fat loss as Steady State cardio
even though HIIT took a third of the time to complete
or the study that found HIIT to improve VO2 Max, a measurement of cardiovascular and aerobic fitness
better than actual aerobic exercise.
Another study showed that
two hours of HIIT per week is just as good for half marathon training
as five hours per week of endurance cardio.
The research goes on and on and on.
Not only is HIIT as good as traditional cardio,
research suggests that it can be better and require much less time commitment.
Now let's look at exactly what is HIIT.
As the name suggest, HIIT consist of
intervals of high intensity.
Between each intense interval is either
a less intense interval or rest.
Since you're going close to max effort, your intense intervals
should be anywhere between ten to sixty seconds
and your recovery interval should fall
into a similar range or just a bit longer.
And the reason for this in the science.
During these high intensity intervals,
you're actually using the anaerobic energy pathway
which burns glucose.
During and after the intense bouts, your body develops metabolites from the anaerobic process
like Pyruvate and Lactate, that will be shuttled along with Oxygen and Fat
to replenish energy.
In essence, you're burning a bunch of glucose during the intense activity
and burning fat during recovery.
And then there's a little thing called "EPOC"
short for "Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption."
After HIIT workouts, your body continues to take in more oxygen,
thus burn more calories in order to restore the body and muscles
back to its pre-exercise state.
In fact, the elevated EPOC is hypothesised to be the main reason
HIIT workouts only have to last a fraction of the time as traditional cardio
to achieve similar weight loss, since you're still burning calories after the workout.
A basic example of HIIT is twenty rounds of thirty seconds near-max effort sprinting
paired with thirty seconds of walking in between.
That's only ten minutes total excluding any warmups and cooldowns.
There's also the "Tabata Protocol" which is an even shorter workout
lasting four minutes for eight rounds of twenty seconds high intensity intervals
and ten seconds breaks.
And don't limit yourself to just sprints.
You can also do other metabolicly demanding exercises
like rowing, battle ropes and kettle bell swings.
Of course, based on your fitness level, you can also adjust the duration of your intervals.
The more fit you are, the longer your work intervals can be
and/or shorter you can rest.
But there is a caveat to HIIT.
As with any intense workouts, whether its lifting heavy weights or sprinting,
in order for your body to adapt to the training stimulus,
you need adequate recovery.
If you do consider doing HIITs, make sure you get
at least a whole day of rest before going at it again.
Better yet, you can do a lighter workout like
traditional cardio, between your HIIT sessions to maximise your results.
In today's hectic lifestyles, it's tough to find time just to yourself
let alone find time to exercise.
But, pretty much all of us have some fitness or health goal,
especially weight loss.
So, instead of spending time doing hours and hours of cardio,
consider doing High Intensity Interval Training.
Or better yet, do both.
In the end, you're saving time
while you're trying to look "fine."
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