HIIT is short for High Intensity Interval Training and it’s popularity is growing rapidly. So what is it and how do you do it ? Today I am going to help you understand it and how you can start using HIIT properly to maximise your fat loss results.
Steady state cardio (things like long jogs) is being gradually push to the side by HIIT and weight training for people who want to get into great shape. There are a number of reasons for this but the main ones would be A) The workouts are shorter. B) You will notice big changes in your body shape. and C) It’s fun!
Typically people join gyms and have no clue of what they are doing and feel too embarrassed to lift weights or to train really hard. So instead the make their way straight to the cardio machines. Typically 15 mins bike, 15 mins treadmill and maybe 10 mins Rower. Now don’t get me wrong, it is 100% better than doing nothing. But if you really want results this is not your best option.
An approach which I recommend you take if fat loss is your goal is to train 4x per week with weights and finish each workout with 10 minutes of HIIT. On the other 3 days you could do some cardio then and have 1 day off.
So now we are getting down to the nitty gritty and you want to know how to do HIIT. We use a massive amount of variation with our HIIT. It’s something I am passionate about and have a ton of books on it. I never let the HIIT finishers go longer than 10 minutes. Why ? Because if it is intense enough(which it should be) then you shouldn’t be able to go longer any anyway.
What you are aiming for is to bring your heart rate up a lot while your working in your intervals and then it will go back down while you rest. For most sessions you will never get complete recovery – i.e your heart rate will not drop back down as low as when you started. But it’s designed to be a short, really intense
workout.
I blogged about Tabata training before BUT for people who are nothighly conditioned I think they are better off with my method below. Why? – Because it works. I test everything and if I feel something is not working I stop doing it. This works and WILL work for you better than Tabata.
When you add in these finishers to your weight training programmes you will begin to drop A LOT more bodyfat than not doing them. So my take home point for you is to cut back on the cardio, hit the gym, get a proper weight training programme and add the likes of this finisher to end the workout. Remember though, make sure its at 100%.
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