HIIT me till it hurts
HIIT ME TILL IT HURTS
High intensity interval training, also known as HIIT has started to gain some traction as a popular way to train. Short and sweetly put, HIIT training is a workout that interchanges between intense bursts of exercise with a period rest/low intensity exercise – think sprints on a track, then walking back to the start, and repeating, or a GRIT class at the gym.
To put it into context with regards to training, when we exercise we are either pushing ourselves into an aerobic zone (where we actively transporting oxygen to and away from our muscles as CO2) or an anaerobic zone (when there is not enough time to transport the oxygen to our muscles and we begin to break down sugar and in return we create lactic acid – hence why we fatigue a lot faster when we are doing anaerobic exercise). HIIT pushes us into an anaerobic zone, as does high intensity muscular activity/weight training. Alternatively a long endurance run, or bike, will have you sitting in the aerobic zone. Our heart rate spikes in anaerobic training with the intense spurts of exercise, whereas aerobic has more of a constant heart rate throughout the exercise.
Due to the intensity of HIIT, the more focused application aspects of the workout creates a metabolic demand of our bodies which is efficient in conditioning our bodies, making them leaner and decreasing fat. While we interchange this peak with the lower intensity/rest period of the workout and our body then uses the aerobics system to recover – but by the end of it you should absolutely be fatigued! I have always been a longer distance runner with the occasional GRIT class (Les Mills version of HIIT training, which is brill), but now I absolutely LOVE HIIT training and feel like it, strangely, is so much easier on my body in terms of recovery and my body doesn’t feel as battered all the time as it did with all the long distance running I was doing. And I love it because it pushes you to your limit and you feel like a boss after – and if you are like me, you love a bit of competition!
Steady state aerobic exercise (i.e. a long run) does encourage fat loss but along with this it also causes lean muscle loss, which is not what we want. The more lean muscle we have, the higher our metabolic rate will be and the ‘tighter’ you will look. You will notice that more often than not long distance runners will be skinny fat, i.e. they will look thin but pull up their top and they will have a thick band of fat around their tummy.
Anaerobic exercise (HIIT) promotes lean muscle gain. Lean muscle mass comes with a myriad of advantages i.e. boosting metabolism, lifting weights increases bone strength and density, helps prevent cardio diseases, diabetes etc etc. HIIT also stimulates the production of a HGH (you just need to know this is a growth hormone) which is responsible for you to have the ability to continue to burn calories post workout, and not just during the workout like slower endurance training will do. HIIT also recruits fast-twitch fibres (we have slow, which are recruited in steady state cardio, and fast which are recruited in HIIT training) which are responsibly for continued calorie burning post workout (can I get a high 5!).
HIIT is also extremely efficient – you get bigger results in a lot less time!
Summarising the above…. HIIT training will
• Promote losing body fat while retaining lean body mass
•Strengthening our cardio system
•Develops our working capacity
•Improves fat and carb oxidation (i.e. will boost your metab!) in skeletal muscle after the workout, as well as during
•You have to have some serious mental motivation so helps with mental strengthening (i.e. making you a hard ****!)
•Stimulating the fast twitch muscle fibres — the fibres that are great for strength, power , looking #shredded and continued calorie burning post workout.
•You can tailor it to be sport specific i.e. rugby, netball.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying don’t do any endurance training – it is always fantastic and very beneficial to do a combo of all sorts of training ,but don’t spend hours slugging away on the treadmill only doing long steady state training and expect to see results!
Em x