Recording Exercise

no1texan

I use the Elliptical about 4 times a week, High Intensity Intervals, usually about 25 minutes. However, the 25 minutes is not just 25 minutes making the Elliptical go back and forth, it is "high intensity." Any way to record the HIIT minutes in MFP?

janejellyroll

If you are doing HIIT 4 times a week, it's likely not actual HIIT.

I would record a base calorie rate and then track for several weeks. If you find you are losing faster than expected, you can adjust your calorie burn to be more.

kami3006

janejellyroll wrote: »

If you are doing HIIT 4 times a week, it's likely not actual HIIT.

I would record a base calorie rate and then track for several weeks. If you find you are losing faster than expected, you can adjust your calorie burn to be more.

^ totally agree. This is the best way to handle it.

AnnPT77

Yup, just log it as elliptical and monitor results.

There is no "HIIT" exercise, because HIIT is an exercise pacing strategy, not an exercise.

IME, I don't burn all that many more calories from very intense exercise (power metered) compared to moderately intense exercise. I'm comparing, for example, rowing machine Tabata intervals or 2K racing intensity (or the >2K intensity intervals that are part of 2K training) to moderately challenging steady state machine rowing.

It feels way harder, and is substantially more fatiguing, and my heart rate is around 20bpm higher . . . but the actual power change isn't all that thrilling (and it's power that correlates with calories; perceived intensity, not so much).

I haven't tried to graph it, but after monitoring my exercise for over a decade now (for training purposes, not weight loss purposes), it seems to me that there's an inflection point in the intensity curve where the exercise starts feeling much harder (geometrically harder?) but the power's going up in a more linear kind of way. Limits of current fitness, I guess. YMMV.

no1texan

Thanks for your comments and information. Can't expect computers/programs/apps to tell us all. I believe it is HIIT in that I do 8 sets on the Elliptical, occasionally couple more for fun, 2 minutes each, push the first 40 seconds to 1 minute, recover the remaining time, 1 minute or so, and repeat - 4 times a week may not be best way to express how many HIIT I do in a week, no back to back HIIT, allowing 48 hours at least in between HIIT.

Machka9

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Yup, just log it as elliptical and monitor results.

This.


Unfortunately, we don't burn as much as we would like to assume we burn. I was more successful losing weight when I under estimated my exercise/calorie burn.

AnnPT77

no1texan wrote: »

Thanks for your comments and information. Can't expect computers/programs/apps to tell us all. I believe it is HIIT in that I do 8 sets on the Elliptical, occasionally couple more for fun, 2 minutes each, push the first 40 seconds to 1 minute, recover the remaining time, 1 minute or so, and repeat - 4 times a week may not be best way to express how many HIIT I do in a week, no back to back HIIT, allowing 48 hours at least in between HIIT.

I want to clarify that I don't believe you're getting push-back on the term "HIIT" because people disbelieve that you're working really hard.

I can only speak for myself: I absolutely believe you're working hard! You would know, right? :flowerforyou:

I think the issue is that the term "HIIT" started out with a very technical definition. That definition referred to cardiovascular exercise that involved a quite short workout in which the intense part of the exercise reached a very high percentage of VO2max (which is basically a person's oxygen-processing capability, loosely), alternated with less-intense intervals. This type of training (with those technical benchmarks) has certain training effects that can be very valuable to athletes who are serious about specific sports, and has very specific physical effects that can be important to other sub-groups.

The key points are that it was inherently understood to be a pretty pure CV exercise, and had technical benchmarks (rather extreme ones).

In recent years, trendy trainers and fitness firms have appropriated the term, and applied it to many, many types of exercise, with the common factor being alternating working really hard for a bit, then working at an easier effort for a bit, for multiple repetitions. They've even named classes and videos "HIIT", making people think HIIT is a type of exercise (in the way that Zumba may be thought to be a (different) type of exercise, say, but in another sense it's just a form of aerobic dance).

In this more recent popularized "HIIT", the types of exercise could be mostly cardiovascular (indoor cycling, say; or walk/run intervals) or might be things that would be considered circuit training (high rep lower weight resistance exercise, perhaps alternated with jog-in-place), calisthenics (burpees, jumping jacks, etc.), "functional fitness" exercises (battle ropes, tire flips, sledge hammers, etc.).

Any of these can be great, beneficial exercise. They can definitely involve working hard!

Formerly, when "HIIT" was a term used more for the rather technically-defined intervals (certain percent of VO2max, defined reps, etc.), the other kinds of exercise where one alternated fast pace with slower pace (without the technical benchmarks) would've simply been called "interval training" (IT), which is a fine pacing strategy with many benefits for athletic training, fitness, and health.

I think some of us feel like regular IT just didn't sound as special, so HIIT became a popular term for what once would've been called IT, making it harder to discuss actual HIIT (the definitions got murked up); and some of the less knowledgeable (or more dishonest) trendy trainers starting telling people that IT (now called "HIIT") delivered all the same benefits as that technically-defined HIIT, which it doesn't necessarily do.

Old-definition HIIT is a good thing, for specific purposes. But it's a thing that no sensible person would do every day; and it's inherently limited to quite-short sessions because of the physical cost of achieving the technical benchmarks. It's quite unpleasant, in most people's view. It's counter-productively exhausting as a daily (or multi times per week) part of a weight-loss strategy. It can be dangerous for beginners.

These disadvantages or dangers are not as big an issue, maybe not an issue at all, for what was once called IT, and is now called (new-definition) HIIT.

I hope that clarifies the mood of skepticism you may see between the lines in some of our responses. It's not a criticism of you, or disrespect to you or the exercise you're doing. It's frustration with the terminology shift, and irritation at cynical or ignorant trainers/companies who use that to deceive people.

collectingblues

no1texan wrote: »

Thanks for your comments and information. Can't expect computers/programs/apps to tell us all. I believe it is HIIT in that I do 8 sets on the Elliptical, occasionally couple more for fun, 2 minutes each, push the first 40 seconds to 1 minute, recover the remaining time, 1 minute or so, and repeat - 4 times a week may not be best way to express how many HIIT I do in a week, no back to back HIIT, allowing 48 hours at least in between HIIT.

Those are intervals, but I don't know of many people who would consider it true HIIT.