HIIT Workouts VS Endurance Cardio

shannonbrewelch

Hey guys!

I just a few questions. I wanted to know if you have any experience or success stories with HIIT workouts? I work out with a personal trainer three times a week for strength training and something similar to HIIT training is thrown in there as well. I do other strength exercises through out the week, but would it be better to do HIIT training to get more toned or endurance cardio on cardio days? I'm a college swimmer out of season right now, so I can handle both, but to get toned what do you guys recommend?

Thank you!

Ryan6691

You'll definitely burn more fat with HIIT training. Sprints are great. When I do cardio I start off with a slow jog (5.0-6.0) for 1 minute then bump it up to 8.0-9.0 for 30-45 seconds. After that I take it back down to 3.0 and walk for 1 1/2 minutes. After that i bump it back up to 8.0-9.0 and run for 45-60 seconds. I continue all that for 20-25 minutes.

Hope that helps!

shannonbrewelch

You'll definitely burn more fat with HIIT training. Sprints are great. When I do cardio I start off with a slow jog (5.0-6.0) for 1 minute then bump it up to 8.0-9.0 for 30-45 seconds. After that I take it back down to 3.0 and walk for 1 1/2 minutes. After that i bump it back up to 8.0-9.0 and run for 45-60 seconds. I continue all that for 20-25 minutes.

Hope that helps!

Thanks! I usually do my HIIT workouts on a rowing machine, but thank you, that does help a lot!

accelerashawn

I just tried some HIIT by pushing a weighted sled this weekend. I thought it was awesome and got way more exhausted than when i do steady state cardio. Plus it almost felt like lifting. I'm going to keep doing the HIIT cuz it burns way more calories per minute and i don't like cardio...haha.

Sam_I_Am77

I do other strength exercises through out the week, but would it be better to do HIIT training to get more toned or endurance cardio on cardio days?

The typical benefit of intervals versus walking / jogging is improvement to your anaerobic energy system. Since you swim and this is your off-season, you need to determine how much of your in-season events are more anaerobic (short / fast swims) or longer more aerobic (longer many laps) swims. If you swim in shorter events, you may want to do more intervals and less (not eliminating) aerobic work. If longer events, then your cardio should be more aerobic in-nature, but still include a small percentage (10% to 20%) anaerobic. Battle Rope intervals, I would imagine, are probably really good for you; I'd look into that.

Off-topic, I could recommend doing some king of plyometric jumping with your training. This will help give you power coming off the block (or whatever it's called at the start) and when you turn-around it'll help with the push-off, not to mention just overall improvement in power & speed development.

shannonbrewelch

The typical benefit of intervals versus walking / jogging is improvement to your anaerobic energy system. Since you swim and this is your off-season, you need to determine how much of your in-season events are more anaerobic (short / fast swims) or longer more aerobic (longer many laps) swims. If you swim in shorter events, you may want to do more intervals and less (not eliminating) aerobic work. If longer events, then your cardio should be more aerobic in-nature, but still include a small percentage (10% to 20%) anaerobic. Battle Rope intervals, I would imagine, are probably really good for you; I'd look into that.

Off-topic, I could recommend doing some king of plyometric jumping with your training. This will help give you power coming off the block (or whatever it's called at the start) and when you turn-around it'll help with the push-off, not to mention just overall improvement in power & speed development.

Awesome that helps a lot. I do Battle Ropes with my personal trainer about four times a month, and I do the plyometric jumping for a good amount of time once a week. That is awesome advice, I will put everything that you said in mind and implement it into my workout. I appreciate you taking the time to advise me.

Sam_I_Am77

The typical benefit of intervals versus walking / jogging is improvement to your anaerobic energy system. Since you swim and this is your off-season, you need to determine how much of your in-season events are more anaerobic (short / fast swims) or longer more aerobic (longer many laps) swims. If you swim in shorter events, you may want to do more intervals and less (not eliminating) aerobic work. If longer events, then your cardio should be more aerobic in-nature, but still include a small percentage (10% to 20%) anaerobic. Battle Rope intervals, I would imagine, are probably really good for you; I'd look into that.

Off-topic, I could recommend doing some king of plyometric jumping with your training. This will help give you power coming off the block (or whatever it's called at the start) and when you turn-around it'll help with the push-off, not to mention just overall improvement in power & speed development.

Awesome that helps a lot. I do Battle Ropes with my personal trainer about four times a month, and I do the plyometric jumping for a good amount of time once a week. That is awesome advice, I will put everything that you said in mind and implement it into my workout. I appreciate you taking the time to advise me.

That's really good and it sounds like you have a PT that understands the difference between training a regular person versus training a competitive athlete, because the needs are quite different.

jmt08c

As an ex-collegiate swimmer I find that sustained cardio works best for me now-my events while in school were 100, 200 and 500 free so I was mid distance. HIIT works too but I can go for hours on a bike at 130-150 HR.

shannonbrewelch

Sam: Yeah I have an amazing athletic trainer who knows exactly what I need for swimming dryland workouts. I am very thankful. He had me doing starts with chains and weights attached to me today, it really helped. He is crazy wise about working out swimmers.

JM: I'm a sprinter/breast/IMer (I'm a wild card, coach throws me in whatever event because I can kick butt in most sprint stroke events). I focus mostly on 50,100,200 Breast and 200 IM. So mostly sprint.

jason_adams

I've done both and had success with both. There are two critical factors for me in determining which I'll do more of:

1) how much time I have
2) what my goals are

If I'm training for an endurance event (15km+run) I'll make sure I'm on a running program that involves long runs (1+ hrs).
Otherwise, I'm all in for HIIT as I can knock my cardio out in 20-30 mins and know that I really got a workout in.

Perhaps your swim coach with have some suggestions for an off-season plan for you? I'd suggest maybe working in some endurance training now and start shifting to HIIT closer to your seasons as "sprinting prep". That's a complete WAG based on old school principals. Not sure what an up to date training would say.