HIIT exercise

bethruthlang
bethruthlang Posts: 3 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I can see improvements in muscle and fat loss with HIIT . Just wondering if anyone could help me with the amount I should be doing and how often I should have break days? (Although I understand everyone is different)

At the moment I will do a HIIT workout on a Sunday and then I will feel too achey to do anything until Tuesday/Wednesday. Should I mix up my workouts (with yoga like I am currently trying) or should I soldier on though the pain with more HIIT workouts? I don't want to overdo it!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Replies

  • IsaackGMOON
    IsaackGMOON Posts: 3,358 Member
    2, maybe 3 sessions a week seems ok for most people. But I don't know anything about your medical history or recovery time etc, so you'll have to go with the general feel.

    Don't work through pain, if it's that bad go see a doctor.
    bethruthlang wrote: »
    I can see improvements in muscle and fat loss with HIIT
    You're purposely trying to lose muscle?
  • Michael190lbs
    Michael190lbs Posts: 1,510 Member
    It depends on your goals. Everyone loses Muscle when they lose fat so of course she is..
  • IsaackGMOON
    IsaackGMOON Posts: 3,358 Member
    edited July 2015
    Michael190lbs wrote: »
    It depends on your goals. Everyone loses Muscle when they lose fat so of course she is..

    It can be minimized by lifting heavy :)

    But I'm not sure if OP is trying to lose muscle purposely with what I highlighted? I assume she isn't... just making sure.
  • davert123
    davert123 Posts: 1,568 Member
    It depends on what else you are doing and what your goal is :-) . HIIT is great but very taxing on your body. If you do a relatively large session of HIIT I personally would only do one session a week and then the next day don't do a lot of training - yoga would be cool. Training fatigue is cumulative. You can "get away" with one session a week and do other volume/low intensity sessions. If you do too many sessions you could easily over train. This could lead to more than sore muscle. This is me talking as someone training for endurance though and I enjoy long sessions. 3 HIIT sessions a week could be overkill and could lead to injury though. 2 would most probably be ok but you would need to experiment, especially if you are doing other training sessions. I use training peaks which shows me what I am doing to myself and is personally adjusted. As Isaac pointed out (indirect paraphrase) "we are all different and it all depends on how you respond to the training load." A good book on training in general (I am sure one of many) is Total Heartrate training by Joe Friel. Good luck. The most important thing for me though is to know what my goal is and direct my training to that goal :-)
  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member
    What does your hiit consist of?
    How is it helping you improve muscle?
    It will help you lose fat vecayse it burns calories.
  • professionalHobbyist
    professionalHobbyist Posts: 1,316 Member
    I was already doing steady state cardio for 45 minutes at 80% heart rate max and my trainer said we should change it up to do HIIT.

    She said to hit 92% heart rate max for 30 seconds, then pant and jog for 2:30. Seems easy enough.

    Two days a week doing 3 min warm up, 5 of those 3 minute cycles, 3 minute cool down. That was the first week.

    Next week after getting used to the body shock of it, 3X a week. I do 7 cycles now with the 3 minutes warm up and cool down.

    Once in a while I get to 95% or more of heart rate max during the 30 second sprint.

    I was told 3x a week max and 7 cycles max.

    I don't need more. After 7 cycles I have sweat dripping off my elbows. If it isn't kickin your *kitten*, you may not be getting to that 95% HRM.

    Or you are in NFL wide receiver shape!

    And HIIT is just stolen from football practice. The wind sprints you do at the end of practice. I laugh now looking back at that. Just new marketing to sell a very old idea.
  • nomad5326
    nomad5326 Posts: 871 Member
    edited July 2015
    Beth, I do HIT every other day at 5-10 iterations max (just me). W/heavy lifting and HIT, I couldn't do it every day, just wouldn't have the recovery time. If your watch/tracker has it, you should see the recovery time (although subjective) and there is a huge difference between strength, cardio and HIT to include Yoga. For me, HIT every other day mixed with something else (strength, cardio, yoga). Just my .02. And you can preserve muscle and lose weight w/creatine but that's another subject. Also, in complete agreement w/Davert123. Here's a link for more HIT info: https://books.google.iq/books?id=3Lj6pdBvzccC&lpg=PA42&ots=kmOSAXinQv&dq=HIT recovery time&pg=PA37#v=onepage&q=HIT recovery time&f=false

    Cheers! Michael

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