Facts About HIIT

The Basic Facts About HIIT

For the longest time, exercises were all about either lifting weights or steady cardio, such as cycling or jogging. Then HIIT came out, and now many gyms provide HIIT classes as well. In fact, a few gyms even concentrate on HIIT for the most part. But what’s HIIT, and why is it so well-known? What is it good for? Are there any problems? Here are a few answers that should give you the basic idea of what HIIT is all about:

Contents

What’s HIIT?

HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. The easiest description of this kind of exercise is that it substitutes a high-intensity, full-blast workout with a simpler, more relaxing exercise. A basic example of it is to sprint at max (or near-max) speed for thirty seconds, which you then follow up by walking for the next thirty seconds.

Then you simply keep on substituting between the two modes. The intense exercise might have you doing two exercises for ten sets. In a few situations, instructors even go extra by suggesting a 2:1 intense to relaxed ratio. That is twenty seconds of running to ten seconds of walking.

It’s Good For Burning Fat:

According to accumulated research, High-Intensity Interval Training has proven more helpful at burning off fat than standard steady-state cardio such as cycling and running. Both kinds of exercises prove equally helpful in boosting conditioning. But with HIIT, you will get better body composition, lose more weight, and improve in fasting insulin levels.

HIIT

You simply need to do HIIT correctly, which denotes you have to increase the heart rate up to eighty-five percent or ninety percent of its max. It leads to the afterburn effect, which denotes the body is burning more calories for the rest of the day as the body recovers from the intensity of the exercise.

With steady state cardio, such as jogging, you do not get that afterburn effect, so you do not burn off extra calories throughout the rest of the day besides the calories you usually burn off. Steady-state cardio is aerobic exercise, denoting you are mainly utilizing oxygen for fueling the muscles. HIIT raises the heart rate, and it is an anaerobic workout.

How Long Should An HIIT Exercise Last?

That really relies on who you ask. A few individuals say that they go to hour-long HIIT sessions. But then you may read other posts saying that only seven minutes of HIIT will be okay. You might desire to do a little personal experimentation to figure out how much HIIT time is good for you.

According to numerous people, that sweet spot is about twenty to thirty minutes. Exercise for less than fifteen minutes, and you might not have spent adequate time at that high-intensity level to really make much of a difference.

But if you are still capable of going past thirty minutes, then you are perhaps not exercising at a high enough intensity to maximize the advantages. You need to comprehend that cranking up the heart rate to eighty-five percent of the max is difficult. It really needs a lot of effort.

Potential Problems:

So, HIIT is great for fat burning and weight loss. But what is the problem? As it turns out, there are several potential problems.

  • Not As Effective For Muscle-Building:

You might have a few HIIT instructors saying that it can also work for muscle building. That might be true in a way, but it is more precise to say that HIIT is not as helpful at muscle building as lifting weights. But HIIT can also assist you in maintaining muscle mass, all while assisting you in burning off fat. So, with HIIT, it is basically about becoming and staying lean and fit.

  • It Is Stressful:

As already stated, attaining eighty-five percent of the heart rate maximum is difficult. In other words, it is stressful. That is not to say that all stress levels are terrible. A bit of stress, in fact, assists you in getting stronger and fit. But a lot of stress is not good, and the body cannot really tell the difference between stress caused by a workout and stress caused by life in general.

So, if you are appending a stressful HIIT exercise to the schedule, then you ought to also append some kind of stress management system. Do yoga along with HIIT to assist with the stress, append a weightlifting class to make certain you are also building bigger muscle, and you will be in good shape in time.

Similar Posts