HITT isn't for me.

charlesmauch

Felt like ranting a little...

When I first began working out, I read all the literature I could get my hands on. I noticed pretty quickly there seemed to be three things which everybody was saying over and over (and over).

1. Barbell Weight Training is the best way to shed fat.
2. HITT/Interval Training is the best way to shed fat.
3. Low Carb Diets are the best way to shed fat.

So ... I threw all three together. Mistake!

I'm not sure how everybody else responds to various training methods, but in my experience combining these three things together is a recipe for burnout. I really wanted to pound my head against the wall when I finally got around to reading the various HITT studies. NONE of them included strength training. The participants in those studies ONLY performed either steady state or intervals for exercise. That should have been a warning.

The other thing I didn't realize at the time is that Interval training (which takes place in the anaerobic threshold aerobic zone (80-90% of Max HR) and the redline zone (90-100%) uses carbs almost exclusively to fuel your activity.

So I was eating a low carb diet, and performing an exercise that was actively eating away at what little (muscle glycogen) carbs I did have in my system. Throw in weight training which further depletes your glycogen stores for extra fun.

After 12 weeks of training, my results were as follows:

1. No weight loss (at all). I was a little thinner, so some fat was being burned, but not a lot
2. Strength gains from weight training were constantly stalling and I wasn't making a ton of progress.
3. I was tired/fatigued/crabby all the time.

I decided at that point to drop interval training entirely, and just switch back to 30 to 45 minutes of steady state aerobic activity for my cardio every day (60% to 70% Max HR). I didn't change my weight lifting routine much at all. I also stopped totally avoiding carbs and I happily eat my fruit/oatmeal in the morning again.

It's been 9 weeks since then. So far:

1. Weigh loss plateau was smashed. Dropped another 11lbs.
2. Gaining strength again under the barbell, muscle growth is even visible, which is supposed to be "difficult" on a caloric deficit.
3. Have energy and feel like jumping off the walls all day long.

I guess the moral of this entire story is be careful about throwing different exercise and diet methods together. Find a program you like and stick with it. Patching what you think might work together probably isn't a good idea.

JoRocka

it isn't that HIIT isn't effective- you just threw all the things in the blender and hit frappe and hoped you'd get a delicious pie with ice cream on the side.

It's perfectly effective- and probably would work very well for you under the right circumstances and applications.
I would hesitate before saying "it isn't for me"... you just (as you learned) threw it all together and got a piss poor outcome.

It's a just a tool. You may still yet be able to apply it.
But it's excellent to see the evaluation and you altered and moved on- that's excellent- it's a hard step for folks to do- but that's really important and you nailed it.

Good luck for your future work!

AllOutof_Bubblegum

Ok....?

So don't do it, then.

I personally don't do running. It's miserable and I suck at it. Doesn't mean it doesn't work.

LiveLoveLift67

There is so much information out there and it can be so hard to sift through it all. What works for some people doesent always work for another and you have to just find what works for you through trial and error ( which you did ). It can be so frustrating at times hearing....lift X amount, lift more or less reps , eat this , eat that, watch carbs, etc etc etc. Every magazine, website, and person will tell you something different that they feel works or is a waste of time.

you just find what works for you and do that. Take some of the advice and mix it up. Congrats on breaking your plateau ! I cant imagine not having my oatmeal or my fruit. ( and occasionally 15 or so Oreos lol).

I personally dont do alot of cardio and very little of it HIIT. I find it drains me too much and i really dont enjoy it. I would much rather do my steady state and just push myself when i do that.

TavistockToad

What about HIIT?

bigsistruck

OP I did the exact same thing, and had the same results...a huge stall. I added back in some carbs and I continue to do HIIT style workouts 3 times a week (although I would say that the ones I'm doing aren't extremely intense, they only do 16 sets of 8 second bursts with 12 minutes of recovery, mixed in with steady state cardio and weights). I do steady state cardio 2 days of the week as well. I find that it works better for me also, I hated being so cranky all of the time and not seeing any results at that!

Lofteren

Well, all of those are true in isolation. However, if you want to incorporate all of them together you are going to be disappointed. If you're training really hard you are going to need to fuel your sessions which means you need some carbs. Here is what I have been doing that has helped me shed a lot of fat while still maintain muscle mass and actually gaining a little strength. Keep in mind that I had already been lifting for years before I started cutting and I was about 360lbs when I started cutting so your calories and macros will be much lower. This is just to use as an example.

I eat 3,000calories a day except for Saturday nights when I eat all of the food and drink all of the beers on the entire North American continent. Sunday-Friday I have a protein shake for breakfast w/ 16oz of whole milk, lunch is some sort of meat (8-12oz) and a salad with fatty dressing like ranch or bleu cheese. For dinner I have whatever my wife made which is usually some sort of meat with some vegetables and will typically include a carbohydrate of some sort. This winds up to be about 300 grams of protein, 100 grams of fat and 200 grams of carbs a day (approximately, and it changes from day to day). After dinner I lift on 4 nights of the week and I lift like a monster. Heavy weight, lots of pain and dungeon muscle torture. An example training session is something like:

Heavy barbell lift (squat, bench, deadlift or ohp)
Work up to really heavy set of 3 reps
Drop weight and do 3 sets of 5-10 reps

Strongman event (Sandbag loads, keg carry, keg press, farmers walks, carry and drag, heavy prowler pushes, etc..)
Do this for 3-5 hard sets

Bodybuilderish accessory lifts supersetted for 15-20 minutes or so
(This could be curls, delt raises, calves, tricep pushdowns, skull crushers, abs, etc...)

I finish my lifting with HIIT on a heavy bag
1 min on/1 min off for 20 minutes

Every once in a while I will get bored of the punching bag and I'll do HIIT with kettlebell swings, prowler pushes, etc... but my primary means of cardio is the heavy bag.

I'm not saying this is the only way to do it. This is just how I have done it and it has been very effective.

rachelrb85

it isn't that HIIT isn't effective- you just threw all the things in the blender and hit frappe and hoped you'd get a delicious pie with ice cream on the side.

This made me lol.
But seriously... if it doesn't work for you then don't do it. I'm sure it works for lots of people. I also think the low carb diet had a lot to do with your lack of strength gains. You need fuel to your workouts. But whatevs, blame it on the HIIT.

devil_in_a_blue_dress

I am not an expert, but as soon as I saw HIIT and low carb I understood why it probably didn't work for you. No offense or anything, but what didn't work for you was bad planning.

runningforthetrain

Thanks for this post. The timing couldn't be better. Exercising isn't my favorite thing to do. However, I want to have energy, lose weight, and exchange some muscle for fat. I have just signed up for a VO2 and RMR test. Also an aquatic body fat measure. I don't want to do anything unnecessary or inefficient. Your post has at least made me feel a little better about the expense I am about to incur. Hopefully, a few others will take note of your experience and you can save some frustration for someone. Good job on the weight loss!

itsthehumidity

So ... I threw all three together. Mistake!

Yeah that's your problem. Barbell training combined with HIIT are indeed superb ways to burn fat. You won't exactly perform well if you don't have any carbohydrates, though. You absolutely need carbohydrates for these activities.

And even if it's a low carbohydrate diet, you won't lose weight unless you're eating at a caloric deficit. So, what you should combine is weight training with barbells, HIIT, and a moderate caloric deficit. Too great a deficit and your performance will suffer and your morale will be low. To small a deficit and progress will be slow. Aim for a 500 net deficit per day. If you stick with that you will lose weight.

msf74

Lots of high intensity work which requires readily available glycogen stores and low carb which can lead to low glycogen stores isn't going to be a marriage made in heaven...

charlesmauch

When I started my goal was basically "loose some weight while trying not to lose any muscle". All the literature I was reading was praising HITT, barbell exercises using compound movements, and low-carb diets as the best ways to go about doing that. Never together, but I didn't see any warnings or obvious indicators that combining them would be a bad idea. As a "newbie" to fitness in general, I didn't see any problems.

I'm mostly upset that it took me so long to figure out that something had to give. I'm not blaming HITT really. I figure it'd probably be pretty effective for gaining strength and burning fat if I scaled back the weight training or began eating like a monster to recover from that much strenuous activity.

Maybe someday I'll try adding it back in. But that will probably be when my ability to recover from heavy lifting sessions increases (I'm guessing that will be when I stop eating at a deficit to lose weight).

charlesmauch

I am not an expert, but as soon as I saw HIIT and low carb I understood why it probably didn't work for you. No offense or anything, but what didn't work for you was bad planning.

Yeah, I agree. When I started, I really didn't know how carbohydrates could affect performance. I just knew that "low-carb diet = good!". I know a little better now ... maybe.

dbmata

someone say ice cream and pie?

TheStephil

I think you are missing out on an important aspect. You have more energy because you stopped with the low carbs. You need carbs for energy.

rhtexasgal

I like what someone else here said - that HIIT was just a tool. Like you, I tried throwing HIIT in along with everything else I was doing, and I crashed and burned within a month. I tried to do it too much along with my regular cardio and weight training. Nope ... not the way to go. Now, I do HIIT once a week as that is all I can handle. I reserve it for Saturday mornings as I don't workout at all on Sunday.

I got into a normal groove of 30 minutes of cardio followed by weight training (alternating arms/abs and legs/abs) five times a week, Mon-Fri ... on Saturday, I give weights a day off and just do the HIIT and that is it. I do it on the elliptical. (5 minute easy warm-up, then I go to town with HIIT 30 seconds full out followed by 90 seconds recovery and repeat 8 times ... then I cool down going slow for 5 more minutes.)

I find with HIIT, I end up with incredible energy the rest of the weekend. The stronger I get with weights, the easier the HIIT is becoming for me. I don't care for cardio much but what one session of HIIT on the elliptical does for me, I will continue to do it.

JoRocka

someone say ice cream and pie?

later but you have to sweat and almost die first.

charlesmauch

it isn't that HIIT isn't effective- you just threw all the things in the blender and hit frappe and hoped you'd get a delicious pie with ice cream on the side.

That's totally true. I figured I'd found the magic combination that was gonna burn fat and make me ripped.

It's perfectly effective- and probably would work very well for you under the right circumstances and applications.
I would hesitate before saying "it isn't for me"... you just (as you learned) threw it all together and got a piss poor outcome.

It's a just a tool. You may still yet be able to apply it.

I'm not sure I'll ever really stop figuring what what works best really. Maybe the best I can hope for is to just figure out what works best at this moment and at my current fitness level.

But it's excellent to see the evaluation and you altered and moved on- that's excellent- it's a hard step for folks to do- but that's really important and you nailed it.

Good luck for your future work!

Thanks for the encouragement!

dbmata

someone say ice cream and pie?

later but you have to sweat and almost die first.

So after legs day.

DavPul

perhaps you should try Super High Intensity Training