You may have heard of HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training, but if you haven’t incorporated this effective training tool into your routine, you could be missing out on a chance to take your fitness to the next level and achieve your goals faster than you thought possible.
High intensity interval training (HIIT) is an effective method to burn subcutaneous fat, the fat that sits right beneath your skin that is visible to the eye, the kind that you can pinch.
In addition to aiding fat loss goals, HIIT has been studied and shown to have many additional health benefits. Read on to find out what HIIT is, why you should care and how you can incorporate it into your lifestyle today.
What is HIIT?
HIIT is exercise that utilizes large muscles and incorporates intense exercise (sprinting) with recovery in one session. During the sprinting portion, you push yourself close to maximum effort for a short period of time (think 8/10), which is immediately followed by a period of recovery. This cycle is repeated several times.
By peaking your heart rate and then allowing your body to recover immediately after you’ll increase your cardiovascular fitness at the same time as targeting the fat you can see. The method of go-rest-go-rest teaches your body to recover quickly so you’ll be training your body to be more effective at recovery as well.
Why Should You Care?
HIIT has been shown to be a more effective form of exercise than moderate paced or steady-state cardio. Even though HIIT often takes less time than other forms of steady-state cardio exercises, HIIT has been shown to burn more calories when compared to other forms of exercise such as biking or jogging.
The reason for this relates to your consumption of oxygen post training, known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). With steady state cardio, the main source of caloric burn is during the workout. With HIIT, you will continue burning calories after the workout, so although you may not burn as many calories during the workout due to the fraction of the length of the session, you will continue burning calories for hours after your workout, so the overall total caloric burn will be higher for a HIIT session.
Health Benefits
In addition to being a more effective training method than steady-state cardio sessions, (which have been shown to cause microscopic tears in heart muscles), there are numerous other health benefits that have been found through scientific studies. Some of these benefits include improving VO2max (cardiovascular fitness), improving fasting insulin levels and improving the quality of mitochondria.
- Improving VO2max, a measure of how much oxygen is consumed during exercise, is used as a measure of aerobic endurance. Physical training can help you improve these numbers and HIIT has proven to be effective at this.
- Improving Fasting Insulin Levels. There is research that also shows that HIIT is more effective at improving insulin sensitivity when compared to moderate-intensity training, or steady-state cardio as I like to call it. The improvement was not found with moderate intensity training.
- Improving the Quality of Mitochondria. If you recall from biology, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. It’s where your body makes energy. Research has shown that HIIT can make your mitochondria more effective, which means more efficient energy production for you.
Time and Flexibility
The aspect I love the most about HIIT is that it doesn’t take up a tremendous amount of time so can easily be incorporated into a busy schedule. It is also great for someone who is newer to exercise or someone coming back from a hiatus (as the position I often find myself in) who wants to start off by incorporating smaller bouts of exercise into their routine. This means you can work in a HIIT exercise routine just about anywhere, making it highly flexible to your schedule. But none of that would matter if this wasn’t an effective form of exercise.
Get Started Today
I found this 35 minute workout by exercise scientist, Christian Finn, in the early 2000s and it is still my go-to for a quick, effective HIIT workout. He times the work portion to maximize glycogen usage.
0-5 minute
• Warm up – essential to eliminate risks check journal – associated with HIIT
5-10 minute
• 15 seconds max, 45 seconds recovery
10-15 minute
• Steady cardio
15-20 minute
• 15 seconds max, 45 seconds recovery
20-25 minute
• Steady cardio
25-30 minute
• 15 seconds max, 45 seconds recovery
30-35 minute
• Cool down
Resources
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Low-Volume High-Intensity Interval Training in a Gym Setting Improves Cardio-Metabolic and Psychological Health. Sam O. Shepherd, Oliver J. Wilson, et al. Published: September 24, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0139056
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Doaj.org
- The effects of high-intensity interval training vs. moderate-intensity continuous training on body composition…Wiley Online Library. M. Wewege, et al. Published: 11 April 2017. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12532