What Is HIIT? Everything You Need To Know About High-Intensity Interval Training
Over the past couple of years, the fitness industry has been revolutionized with new training techniques emerging to suit people’s needs and preferences. One of these new exercise methods is high-intensity interval training or HIIT. Due to its ability to engage in the body more efficiently and burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, HIIT has quickly become popular among those with busy schedules.
If you are interested in trying this exercise method but aren’t sure if it’s the right choice for you, this article can help you out. It contains everything you need to know about HIIT, including the benefits, risks, and recommendations.
What Is High-Intensity Interval Training?
High-intensity interval training commonly refers to a series of demanding exercises performed in short bursts with a less intense recovery period held between them. During the hard part of the cycle, the body is challenged to endure strenuous training.
The recovery portion allows it to recover enough and work harder in the next intense part. However, as the alternations are happening in quick succession, the heart rate is kept at an elevated rate (which is ideally 80%-95% of its maximum) the entire time. In some beginner HIIT programs, the heart rate can drop 40%-50% of your maximum during the resting phase but as long as it’s kept at this level, the results can be achieved.
This essentially means that you can burn a significant number of calories while you are resting too. Depending on the specific HIIT session and what you want to achieve, the training can last from five to 45 minutes, while the intervals may range from five seconds to eight minutes.
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The Benefits of HIIT
Naturally, HIIT is a demanding exercise, but it comes with many benefits. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced athlete, you can take advantage of it. Here is the type of rewards you can get from it.
It Burns More Calories
As your body struggles to get you through the grueling workout of the intense part, your heart is forced to pump blood at a much faster rate than it would in a relaxed state. This reflects in the acceleration of other metabolic processes.
It doesn’t stop even when you are in a lower intensity interval, and your body keeps burning the same amount of calories as it did during the more intense phase. In addition, the strain that’s put on all your muscle groups, where the metabolic demand becomes even higher.
More importantly, due to the intensity of the workout, your metabolism stays in this accelerated state long after you have finished training. The highest levels for metabolic rate stay present for at least two hours, but it doesn’t completely slow for a couple of hours after that.
Your muscles need to repair themselves and as they do, they are using energy. Combined with a healthy diet, this results in a calorie deficit and weight loss. Overall, you get to burn up a lot more calories than you would in a regular workout and keep burning them as you go by your day after your gym session.
Its Highly Efficient
Due to our busy schedules, we tend to neglect our body’s needs for proper diet and exercise. With all those errands to run and work assignments to complete, who has time and energy for a 30-90 minutes gym session anymore?
Well, with HIIT, you don’t have to find time for a workout program. With this type of exercise, you can complete a full-body workout session in under 30 minutes and burn the same amount of calories as you wound in a regular session that lasts double that time.
Not only that, but you achieve the same gains as well. Whether you are looking to build muscle or simply strengthen your body, 30 minutes of HIIT a day can get you the results you want. With continued practice, you can achieve the same results in even as little as one-third of the time of a traditional workout.
It Can Improve Your Health
By helping you lose weight and get in shape at a faster rate, HIIT can already make you healthier and happier, but the health rewards don’t stop here. Even just a couple of 20 minutes of high-intensity interval training sessions a week can make vast improvements to your health markers. It’s proven to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels and regulate heart rate. In some cases, it may even reduce blood sugar levels to the point of reversing type two diabetes.
All this has a positive effect on your mental health. As you begin to see the positive changes in your body, your mood will improve. Naturally, it works best if coupled with healthy meals and other lifestyle choices, but the results speak for themselves.
It Can Add More Variety to Your Workout Routine
Sticking to one type of workout may result in you hitting a plateau with your goals, which causes frustration, and if you try to push yourself harder, you even risk burnout or injuries. Incorporating HIIT into your workout program can spice up your session. You can include exercises that challenge your body in a different way, so none of your muscles and joints get overused.
It’s also a great way to make your exercise routine feel more fun and less like a chore you need to get done in order to obtain the desired results. By having fun and focusing on pushing your body during the intense phase, the entire workout will be a breeze. HIIT is a particularly great alternative for traditional resistance training, as it’s way more exciting to alternate the intervals than to just go with the motion of the sets.
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The Risks of HIIT Workouts
While it can be a fun and engaging way to exercise, as with all other workout programs, HIIT also carries its own risks. One of the greatest dangers comes from simply overdoing it.
As you notice the rapid changes in your body, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing the grueling workouts every single day, just to keep the results coming. However, you must remember that HIIT pushes your body to its limits, which means that you will need to let it recover too.
Doing HIIT sessions more than four times a week leaves no time for your muscles to repair themselves, so it can be counterproductive in terms of weight gain. The only exception from this is if you are varying the intensity of your exercise.
The second major risk may come from injury caused by poor form. Yes, HIIT requires you to work fast and intensely, but not at the expense of slacking your form. By solely focusing on getting through the exercise faster, you may sacrifice your ability to keep the appropriate stance which can know you off balance, resulting in an injury. You can avoid this by picking exercises that you know to perform well and paying attention to your form the entire time.
Another error made by people starting HIIT is misguiding their fitness level and selecting the wrong modality level for themselves. While HIIT can be suitable for all fitness levels, for beginners jumping into an intermediate program is not the best way to establish an exercise routine. This again can lead to injuries that can prevent you from working out for a long time and even put you off HIIT altogether.
How to Get Started?
If you have decided to give high-intensity training a try, you may be wondering how to begin. Regardless of your fitness level, if you haven’t done this type of cyclical training before, initially, you may find it challenging. Here are some pointers on how to get started with HIIT.
Select the Correct Modality
The first thing you need to do is select the modality that suits your fitness level. Here are some you can choose from:
Beginners
- 20 minutes broken down to five minutes warm-up, 10 intervals alternating between 30 seconds of hard and 30 seconds of easy exercises, and a five-minute cool-down period.
- 30 minutes broken down to five minutes warm-up, 15 intervals alternating between 30 seconds of hard and 30 seconds of easy sets, and five minutes of cool down.
Intermediate Level
- 20 minutes broken down into five minutes warm-up, 14 intervals alternating between 30 seconds of hard and 15 seconds of easy exercises, and five minutes of cool down.
- 30 minutes broken down to five minutes warm-up, 16 intervals alternating between 45 seconds of hard and 30 seconds of easy sets, and a five-minute cool-down period.
Advanced Level
- 30 minutes broken down into five minutes warm-up, 20 intervals alternating between 45 seconds of hard and 15 seconds of easy exercises, and five minutes of cool down.
Select the Correct Exercises
Besides the modality, you also want to select the exercises you will be doing. Although HIIT is about how you are performing your sets and not which exercises you are doing, you will want to select them beforehand.
You can do any type of activity you enjoy as long as they fit your fitness level. That said, HIIT works best as a total body workout program, so try to choose a variety of exercises that will engage all your muscles. You should also aim to select ones that require as little equipment as possible to have less downtime and keep up the intensity.
Combining the Two
The next step in getting started with your HIIT workout is deciding on the combination of modality and exercises. For example, you can select an activity and determine how long the burst and the recovery period will last. Consider your fitness level and which exercises you can do for a certain amount of time.
Most high-intensity interval training workouts last for 20-30 minutes, but some of them can be extended up to 45 minutes. This is all dependent on your fitness level and, of course, your time constraints. Generally, the fitter someone is, the longer they can keep up the hard interval in relation to the relaxation period.
However, regardless of how long you feel you can go with a particular workout, you must keep the intense intervals short. The goal is to allow your muscles to work at maximal effort and reap all the metabolic benefits of HIIT. Never go over 45 seconds with your hard intervals, as this can put too much strain on your metabolism.
It’s also a good idea to listen to your body. Even if you are used to doing a certain type of exercise, the grueling pace of HIIT can make it challenging to perform. If you are doing HIIT in a group or a gym, don’t try to keep up with people whose fitness level is above yours. Just do it at your own pace and push your body only as hard it can go.
A Final Word
Despite popular belief, high-intensity interval training isn’t only just for professional athletes. In fact, it can benefit anyone who is looking for a way to exercise more efficiently.
That’s not to say that beginners should just jump right in into any type of HIIT program, as this can result in an injury. Nor should professionals drop their regular workout routine and swap it with HIIT because it might not work out for them.
The key is to find a program that maximizes the benefits of one’s workout and fortunately, there are many ways to do it through HIIT. Make sure to access your endurance levels before trying a program. Once that’s done, feel free to try out the one that suits you the best. Who knows, maybe you will find your new favorite exercise routine.
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