HIIT routine question

Trytotryharder

Ok so iv'e been trying out HIIT for the past few weeks and I just have a quick question regarding routines.

Theres two different ones I have tried but I dont know which one would be best for fat loss.

Routine 1 -
2min warm up
20sec high/60 sec low x10

Routine 2 -
2min warm up
15sec high/40 sec low x14

I definitely feel more of a burn doing routine 1 solely because of the extra 5 seconds of high intensity, it seems to make a big difference with the difficulty. However my ratio with my second routine is a lot better and I can do it for a bit longer.

Any ideas on which one i should try and pursue?

turtledrummer23

In the end the differences are probably going to be minimal. I can't back that up with science, but the fact that you can lose weight by strength training alone, or running long distance alone, as long as you count your calories it probably won't make a difference on the specifics of which HIIT workout you do. The better one is whichever one is better for you, whichever one you're going to maintain, whichever one you enjoy more, and whichever one feels better. Or you can combo them to keep it fresh.

Good luck!

halleymw

HIIT instructions are all over the map when you do an internet search. Most of the ones I read seemed to call for 8 cycles. What I did was the 5 minute warmup, 8 cycles, then do regular cardio for a total of 30 minutes. I started slow, and now have worked up to 30 sec on 30 sec off, and am now increasing my cycles, will probably go to 10 and then maybe work on lowering the slow phase.

I often wonder if HIIT is the grapefruit diet equvalent, so I do both hiit and regular aerobic exercise. A discussion of HIIT by a skeptic:

http://anthonycolpo.com/how-good-is-hiit-for-fat-loss-really/

Mike

ChrisLindsay9

If you have time, check out this link: http://www.brinkzone.com/general-fitness-info/hiit-training-what-you-need-to-know/

Will Brinks recently interviewed a researcher who's been performing studies on HIIT exercises for his podcast. I thought it was pretty informative and beneficial for me when I had incorporated HIIT into my fitness program.

http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/2013/04/15/brink-zone-radio-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit-overrated-or-the-optimal-form-of-exercise/