High Intensity Interval Training

davidpoolman5

When i am doing HIT cardio i dont reach my calorie goals . But i feel like i am working harder and my heart rate goes up. Do i really need to worrie about calories burned when doing HIT cardio or not

JoanneKendrick

I think you burn more calories doing hit. Always good to up your work out :-)

meshashesha2012

HIIT doesnt really burn as many calories as people thinks it should, which makes sense since you're only doing it for a very short period of time..technically with HIIT you're only doing like 5 minutes of work the rest of the time is rest


http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/research-review-effects-of-exercise-intensity-and-duration-on-the-excess-post-exercise-oxygen-consumption.html

That is, if two people both burned 300 calories during exercise but one exercised at a high intensity and one at low intensity, the high intensity guy would get about double the EPOC. The problem is that, even under these conditions, the EPOC is still pretty minimal in an absolute sense (e.g. total number of calories burned).
In one study, subjects who exercised for 80 minutes at 70% VO2 max (about 80% of maximum heart rate) had an EPOC lasting 7 hours. But it only amounted to about 80 calories extra burned. Not to mention that only the most well trained individuals could sustain such a workload in the first place. As well, this still represented a rather small proportion of the total calorie burn from the exercise bout itself. That is, most of the calories burned were from the 80 minutes of exercise, the small EPOC only added a bit to that. Yeah, every little bit helps but which is going to contribute more to fat loss: the 700-800 calories burned during the exercise bout itself or the 80 calories burned afterwards?
Additionally, it appears that there is an intensity threshold to generate any EPOC at all, compared to exercise at 30-50% VO2 max (50% VO2 is about 65% of max HR or the typical ‘fat burning’ zone), exercise at 75% generates a larger EPOC. However, the total calorie burn is still relatively small overall, averaging perhaps 7% of the total energy burned.
So if you burn 600 calories with high intensity continuous exercise, you might burn an additional 45 afterwards. While this certainly adds up over long periods of time, it’s still relatively insignificant compared to the total energy expenditure of the exercise bout. Again, which is more important for fat loss:the 45 extra calories you burned via EPOC or the 600 calories you burned with the exercise bout itself?

DavPul

HIIT is still exercise, not magic. we can't just wave a wand over an activity, deem it HIIT, and ignore our calorie goals