We’ve all, at one time or another, wanted to have the cardiovascular endurance of serious athletes and fighters, and for a long time it was believed that long, marathon style cardio was required to reach that. But in recent years it’s come to light that the answer lies not within a concrete pounding ten mile run, but in the method known as HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).
What is HIIT?
HIIT, put simply, is a training method in which you give your all, one hundred and ten percent effort, through quick and intense bursts of exercise. These intense bursts are followed by short, though still active, recovery periods. It is also perhaps the most time-effective way to exercise to get the most bang for your buck.
Usually, HIIT workouts only range from about ten to thirty minutes in duration. But, despite the length of the workout, it can promote health benefits similar or greater to twice as much moderate exercise.
Workouts that use HIIT as a central theme can vary widely, but they tend to include things like sprinting, biking, jump roping, or any other kind of body weight exercise. For example, a HIIT workout can consist of sprinting on the treadmill for thirty seconds, and then taking thirty seconds to a minute jogging or walking to recover, only to go right back up to sprinting again immediately when that ends.
This would be a typical “round” of HIIT, and most people would perform about four to six repetitions in a single workout. But, the specifics of the time spent and the rounds performed during the exercise will vary based on what you’re doing and your starting fitness levels.
And not only does it provide a time benefit, but it also has unique health benefits that set it apart from marathon style training.
Health Benefits of HIIT
For one, calories are burned much faster using HIIT. In one study, the calories burned were compared between HIIT, running, weight training, and biking. The researchers found that HIIT burned around thirty percent more calories than the other forms of exercise.
Not only that, but your metabolic rate actually raises and stays elevated for hours after completing the workout. Several studies have demonstrated HIIT’s impressive ability to increase your metabolic rate for hours after exercise.
In the same study, HIIT was also found to shift the body’s metabolism towards fat for energy, as opposed to carbs. Two minutes of sprinting were also found to raise your metabolism just as much as thirty minutes of jogging.
And that brings me finally to the simple fact that it helps you burn more fat than otherwise. One study looked at thirty experiments and four hundred overweight adults. It was found that while both HIIT and marathon training can reduce fat, HIIT helped reduce more and lead to a smaller waist circumference. Additionally, one study found that people performing HIIT three times per week for 20 minutes per session lost 4.4 pounds, or 2 kgs, of body fat in 12 weeks — without any dietary changes.
