Twenty minutes of high intensity interval training increases your aerobic capacity (VO2max) dramatically, maintains lean muscle mass, boosts your metabolism during and after exercise, and burns more fat calories than 30-45 minutes of low intensity cardio. Sound too good to be true? It’s not. In one research study participants who engaged in 90 sessions of traditional cardio over a 20 week period lost 1% bodyfat, while participants who engaged in 25 sessions of moderate intensity cardio then 35 sessions of high intensity cardio over a 15 week period lost 3% bodyfat. Additional studies have shown that participants who engaged in short high intensity training lost 9 times more fat than those who performed long low intensity training. Longer low intensity cardio can actually be counterproductive for more fit individuals because it burns up hard earned muscle decreasing fat burning. It’s also incredibly boring and time consuming and doesn’t do much for your aerobic capacity.
How To Start
The key to high intensity intervals is to incorporate them into your existing cardio routine. Because it’s a much more demanding workout you should start by replacing two of your weekly long low intensity cardio sessions with two short high intensity interval workouts. Eventually you can work up to three or more HIIT workouts per week.
Best Activities
Choose an activity that you enjoy but is easy to adjust in intensity level and monitor like, walking, running biking, or any cardio machine such as the stationary bike, cross-trainer, treadmill, stair-master, or versa-climber. Most of these machines have high intensity programs but a lot of times they don’t provide enough intensity so it’s good to just punch in a manual workout and then adjust your intervals as you go by manually changing the speed and or incline. Aim for a 5 min. warmup followed by 15-20 min. of intervals, (a 30 sec. high intensity to 60 sec. moderate intensity ratio typically works best for beginners), then cool down at a moderate pace for 3-5 min. Once you get the hang of it you can mix up your ratios and incorporate intervals into your strength workouts too.
Helpful Gear
The most important tool you can have for your HIIT workouts is a Gymboss Interval Timer, a tiny programmable timer you can attach to your outfit, that will track your intervals and help you work harder so you burn more fat and calories. The only two other things you need are a towel to wipe off all the sweat and hi-energy music to get you motivated.
Measuring Intensity
Use the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale below to measure intensity. Your goal should be to work in the 8-9 RPE range during high intensity intervals and recover in the 4-5 RPE range. The RPE scale goes from 0-10 with 0 being no effort and 20 being maximum effort but it has been simplified by various fitness experts as follows:
· Level 4: low intensity, warm-up level, easy
· Level 5: low to moderate intensity, still fairly easy
· Level 6: moderate intensity, working and breathing a little hard
· Level 7: moderate to high intensity, breathing harder, more challenging
· Level 8: high intensity, very challenging, breathing very hard, difficult to talk
· Level 9: very high intensity, busting your butt to keep up, breathing seriously hard
· Level 10: maximum intensity, feels like your heart will burst out of your chest.
Get started with a High Intensity Interval Training Workout Plan that gets progressively more challenging each week.
Burn more fat and calories by timing your intervals with the Gymboss Interval Timer
