If you ask any fitness instructor for tips on how to lose weight you will likely find HIIT among the suggestions. But what is high intensity interval training and who should be performing it?
Today we'll teach you the various styles of this form of exercise as well as explaining the various myths which surround it.
While many people are content to jog at a steady pace on a treadmill for hour after hour, there is a large amount of the fitness population who find this approach a little boring. As a result, they tend to put their efforts into resistance training and in many cases they completely neglect cardiovascular exercise.
High intensity interval training provides both groups with a stepping stone between their respective styles, offering the benefits of both methods in one workout.
What type of person should be using this training method? It may surprise you to hear that both sets of people would get results. While your body is able to increase it's ability to shed unwanted fat at a quicker rate than regular cardiovascular activity, studies also show an increase in our ability to build lean muscle.
One of the biggest plus sides of this training style is a phenomenon called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption. You might have heard this called "The Afterburn Effect" by some trainers. When performing a resistance training session your body continues to burn off calories for up to sixteen hours after your session is over, this is also a benefit of interval training.
Take a look below at the most common variations of interval training and you will be able to apply one of these methods to your own training routine easily.
* Tabata Interval Training.
* Performing intervals specifically to improve your performance in a sporting event.
* Interval training specifically to reduce body fat.
The first method, known as Tabata Interval Training, was designed by Professor Tabata during the 1990's. This theory was put forward to increase the fitness level of elite athletes so most people who perform this particular style are already very experienced in the gym and consider themselves to be at an advanced level of overall fitness.
The Tabata method originated from Japan and was able to increase the VO2 Max of a group of elite athletes by a shocking 28% in just a few weeks.
Tabata intervals can be performed on any piece of equipment and the total workout time, minus warm-up and cool-down periods, is only four minutes long. Those 4 minutes contain of eight 30 second sections, each consisting of 20 seconds at maximum intensity followed by 10 seconds of light recovery.
If your goal is to improve performance for a sport then there is a slight variation on the Tabata method which will work well for you. This involves performing a longer workout, between 20 and 30 minutes in total, which combines a cardiovascular activity as your high intensity work and a resistance exercise as your recovery. One good example of this would be to combine a 400 meter sprint on a rowing machine with 30 seconds of push-ups. That particular session is used by many professional rowing clubs.
The fat loss method is easily the most popular variation, however. If you are looking to use this workout style to increase your fat loss then you should pay particular attention to a recent study from scientists in Canada. They found that the optimal workout length was half and hour, consisting of a time split of 4 minutes moderate work followed by 30 seconds of maximum effort.
Furthermore, regardless of whether your goal is weight loss or building muscle, recent scientific studies show that performing high intensity interval training before your resistance training increases the body's natural ability to perform both of the goals listed above.
Learning how to lose weight can be a tricky affair, with so much contradicting information in circulation. The three styles of HIIT given in today's post have the most scientific evidence to support their benefits and, depending upon which category you fit into, you will be able to fit one of these into your existing weights routine.
Today we'll teach you the various styles of this form of exercise as well as explaining the various myths which surround it.
While many people are content to jog at a steady pace on a treadmill for hour after hour, there is a large amount of the fitness population who find this approach a little boring. As a result, they tend to put their efforts into resistance training and in many cases they completely neglect cardiovascular exercise.
High intensity interval training provides both groups with a stepping stone between their respective styles, offering the benefits of both methods in one workout.
What type of person should be using this training method? It may surprise you to hear that both sets of people would get results. While your body is able to increase it's ability to shed unwanted fat at a quicker rate than regular cardiovascular activity, studies also show an increase in our ability to build lean muscle.
One of the biggest plus sides of this training style is a phenomenon called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption. You might have heard this called "The Afterburn Effect" by some trainers. When performing a resistance training session your body continues to burn off calories for up to sixteen hours after your session is over, this is also a benefit of interval training.
Take a look below at the most common variations of interval training and you will be able to apply one of these methods to your own training routine easily.
* Tabata Interval Training.
* Performing intervals specifically to improve your performance in a sporting event.
* Interval training specifically to reduce body fat.
The first method, known as Tabata Interval Training, was designed by Professor Tabata during the 1990's. This theory was put forward to increase the fitness level of elite athletes so most people who perform this particular style are already very experienced in the gym and consider themselves to be at an advanced level of overall fitness.
The Tabata method originated from Japan and was able to increase the VO2 Max of a group of elite athletes by a shocking 28% in just a few weeks.
Tabata intervals can be performed on any piece of equipment and the total workout time, minus warm-up and cool-down periods, is only four minutes long. Those 4 minutes contain of eight 30 second sections, each consisting of 20 seconds at maximum intensity followed by 10 seconds of light recovery.
If your goal is to improve performance for a sport then there is a slight variation on the Tabata method which will work well for you. This involves performing a longer workout, between 20 and 30 minutes in total, which combines a cardiovascular activity as your high intensity work and a resistance exercise as your recovery. One good example of this would be to combine a 400 meter sprint on a rowing machine with 30 seconds of push-ups. That particular session is used by many professional rowing clubs.
The fat loss method is easily the most popular variation, however. If you are looking to use this workout style to increase your fat loss then you should pay particular attention to a recent study from scientists in Canada. They found that the optimal workout length was half and hour, consisting of a time split of 4 minutes moderate work followed by 30 seconds of maximum effort.
Furthermore, regardless of whether your goal is weight loss or building muscle, recent scientific studies show that performing high intensity interval training before your resistance training increases the body's natural ability to perform both of the goals listed above.
Learning how to lose weight can be a tricky affair, with so much contradicting information in circulation. The three styles of HIIT given in today's post have the most scientific evidence to support their benefits and, depending upon which category you fit into, you will be able to fit one of these into your existing weights routine.
About the Author:
Publisher: Next, grab your free guide to effective hiit workouts. Russ Howe PTI is the UK's most popular personal trainer, teaching thousands of people how to lose weight online each day for free.
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