Introduction
I will start by saying that any physical activity that raises your heart rate is good for you. Period. The more advanced one gets, the more one must intensify and switch up their workouts to continue to be challenged in order to see results. The less active you are, you have it a little bit easier when starting out doing any physical activity that your body is not used to because you may always see changes in your "beginner" stage, based simply on the fact that you are not conditioned. As of late, the Institute of Medicine, as a call to the general public, "increased its recommendations from 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days of the week to 60 minutes of exercise EVERY day." I couldn't agree more.
The Buzz About HIIT Training
"It's like lighting a match to a fat-burning furnace...!!!"
In the last two months, there's been a noticeable buzz about HIIT training vs. steady-state cardio in popular magazines like Oxygen, Fitness Rx, Muscle and Fitness Hers and GNC's, Muscle Body that interval training and/or HIIT training vs. steady state cardio, have been hot topics for debate. In my own experience, steady-state cardio had worked slowly over time, which makes sense. In doing steady-state cardio which is a low-intensity cardio activity such as walking, jogging, ellipticaling, cycling or swimming and more you are at one steady constant pace. You do not typically vary this pace, you do this activity at your moderately intense speed. Unlike our counterpart HIIT also known as High Intensity Interval Training, appropriately named for its bouts of "work periods" and "rest periods" or recovery periods. HIIT is said to have an "afterburn effect", (where you continue to burn calories after you've performed the exercise) and is more of a power exercise. This fact alone shows that HIGH intensity interval training is the opposite of LOW intensity steady-state cardio. Being that, it will require more energy to perform.
What is HIIT?
According to HIITtraining.net , "HIIT is the quickest way to burn fat and gain muscle simultaneously. How does HIIT work? HIIT optimizes your workout time by utilizing a series of short, high-intensity intervals, followed up by longer, low-intensity intervals. The reason HIIT is so successful is that HIIT’s repeated intervals constantly keeps your body confused. Your body is never given a chance to “plateau” or get used to one setting, something that is common with other forms of cardio. Due to the nature of HIIT, it is typical to have workouts that are only 20 minutes or less and still burn the same amount of calories as an hour of regular exercising. The best part of HIIT is that it boosts your metabolism and will continue to burn hundreds of calories hours after you are done exercising! HIIT is all about changing it up and fighting the ever looming “plateau effect”, and if used properly, HIIT is one of the best ways to reach your fitness goals."
I couldn't have explained that better myself. I would say its a rather optimistic summary on HIIT training as it only takes into account those of us trying to lose weight and not the group that is trying to keep or build more muscle than what they have. The loophole is that if done too intensely or on not enough calories HIIT can have the effect of you burning off your lean mass and/or muscles. So, everything including cardio MUST be tailored to fit your body type and your specific fitness/nutrition goals.
On the other hand, Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" e-book that I can accurately say is a bodybuilding Bible, authorizes that "One beneficial aspect of HIIT that most trainers forget to mention is that HIIT may actually suppress your appetite, while steady state cardio might increase appetite. However, in the study performed (between an Endurance Training group and a HIIT training group in Tom Venuto's article), the lack of the monitoring of nutrition can both groups can skew the results where both forms of cardio in both studied groups, tie. If energy intake were not controlled, then some of the greater fat loss in the HIIT group could be due to lowered caloric intake.
"Last but not least, I’d like to highlight the words of the researchers themselves in the conclusion of the paper, which confirms the effectiveness of HIIT, but also helps put it in perspective a bit:
For a given level of energy expenditure, a high intensity training program induces a greater loss of subcutaneous fat compared with a training program of moderate intensity.”
(For those of you that don't know, subcutaneous fat is the fat right underneath your skin tissue.)
“It is obvious that high intensity exercise cannot be prescribed for individuals at risk for health problems or for obese people who are not used to exercise. In these cases, the most prudent course remains a low intensity exercise program with a progressive increase in duration and frequency of sessions.” (Venuto)
"If one cardio isn't enough in a day, you didn't do the first one right!!"
My Experience
Many bodybuilders swear by low-intensity cardio training when getting ready for shows because of how low-intensity exercise primarily utilizes your fat stores as energy, hence, it's slow and long characteristic. The theory is, in order for bodybuilders to preserve their muscle while still shredding fat with minimal muscle loss, slow and steady cardio wins the race without burning off much muscle. However, once again, being a guinea pig to both forms of cardio and being in the minority for the body type that I am; female mesomorph, both have worked but HIIT has worked better.For these last two years, I swore by steady-state cardio twice a day. Sometimes jogging up to 9 miles in a day and seeing little difference. I felt great but I didn't see the kind of immediate results one would think they would get after running that distance. I persevered and eventually was burnt out by the amount of time spent doing countless hours of cardio. I was over it AND so was my body as I began to see minimal results unless I was strict with my nutrition.
However, after years of doing slow and steady cardio on a full or empty stomach I have only noticed significantly increased gains of weight loss or mass when I counted my calories. I've been doing this form of cardio since I was 15 and now, almost 26 I clearly needed a change. Perhaps, changing my cardio to almost anything else would have worked. However, being an advanced conditioned "elite athlete", I must do difficult workouts to get shredded. So far, HIIT has been the answer. Just after a few days of doing it, fat off my abs started to melt. I could feel them coming through as I sprinted through my work intervals. Some days I had to eat extra carbs to refuel for my training workout-- which I have NEVER had to do in my low-intensity cardio days. I've never felt like I was burning fat so effectively until I tried HIIT training to the point that I couldn't do it everyday like I wanted because I was simply burning too much too fast! Almost to the point where I was burning off my leg muscles and trust, for me, that is HARD to do!
The Loophole
Today I jogged outside for 50 minutes. It was harder than expected, there were some hills and I had burnt out some of my carb stores the night before doing HIIT cardio. So it was no surprise that jogging felt like I was climbing Mt. Everest at every bump in the road! I jogged it at a steady rate on an empty stomach and after taking a month break of not jogging at a steady state for awhile, to then come back to it today, the results afterwards were also noticeable. However, doing too much anything is typically not a good thing. You could burn out or easily overtrain. Bottom line is, its always important to switch it up! Depending on your body type (it WILL be an ongoing theme) HIIT training will be fabulous for the thicker individual who has fat they want to get rid of and are pressed for time and are NOT looking to gain weight for any bodytype. If you are in a bodybuilding mode and are an ectomorph or ecto-meso, that is trying to build muscle you must be careful with the amount of HIIT you do, or at all, if you are a hard-gainer because it is easy for you to lose weight and resist building muscle. If you do it, you better eat enough!!!
Gone are the days of two-a-day cardio sessions. I've seen more of my muscles shine through the fat on ONE hard cardio session than two low-intensity ones. Either way, diet, intensity and heart rate, ALWAYS play a significant role in losing or gaining weight.
HIIT Training example:
- 1 minute walk
- 1 minute jog
- 1 minute sprint (then repeat for 20-40 mins max)
- 30 minutes on the elliptical at a steady speed of 90 strides a minute
On a Kristened note: Carbs are essential for energy on your HIIT cardio days so make sure you get enough!
More to come in my next blog on Why HIIT is so effective and further details regarding this training technique.
Sources:
Venuto, Tom. "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle."
Web link:
www.HIITtraining.net
http://www.hiittraining.net/
Website:
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/steady-state-cardio-5-x-more-effective-than-hiit/
Textbook:
Nix, Staci. "Williams' Basic Nutrition and Diet Therapy". St.Louis, Missouri. Mosby, Inc.2009.
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