Confused- interval training v more calories burnt

jamiesadler

My trainer told me the reason this is so beneficial is because it takes so much energy to bring you heart rate up and drop it down and bring it up etc. It wouldnt recommend doing it more than 3 times a week and certainly not on super heavy lifting days. It is very beneficial for weight loss and takes far less time than traditional cardio exercises.

DannyMussels

I used to do about 5 mins warm up, then 20mins interval on an elliptical (i think it was a minute fast, minute slow) then 5-10 cooldown. It was my favorite way (in like 5-6yrs) to exercise.

Highly recommended. But I don't think I could do it on a treadmill. I'd probably fall , or die.

crisanderson27

Whenever I read one of these anecdotes (e.g. Karen Cosgrove) that describes how they were doing all this cardio, but then switched to HIIT and saw these miraculous results, my reaction is always "well, you were doing some crappy cardio all those years".

If you mean Rachel Cosgrove...I think I have to disagree. Training for an Iron Man, isn't exactly crappy (for steady state) cardio.

The reason why is because intervals (like HIIT) verges more on "anaerobic" than "aerobic". Anaerobic training has the tendency to utilize fat better at rest than from standard steady state cardio training.

Agreed...through experience.

Azdak

Whenever I read one of these anecdotes (e.g. Karen Cosgrove) that describes how they were doing all this cardio, but then switched to HIIT and saw these miraculous results, my reaction is always "well, you were doing some crappy cardio all those years".

If you mean Rachel Cosgrove...I think I have to disagree. Training for an Iron Man, isn't exactly crappy (for steady state) cardio.

The reason why is because intervals (like HIIT) verges more on "anaerobic" than "aerobic". Anaerobic training has the tendency to utilize fat better at rest than from standard steady state cardio training.

Agreed...through experience.

Ooops. Poor Karen--I didn't mean to insult her like that (old friend and GREAT marathon runner back in the day).

But, yeah, that's pretty much what I mean. Anyone who gets THAT much benefit from HIIT (at least the way she describes) was not following a particularly intelligent or balanced program before. Physiologically, there's no way HIIT can make that much of a difference in a trained athlete unless it's an area that was totally ignored.

There's nothing new about any of this. We have more research today that is providing more detail to exactly how HIIT affects the body, but the basic research on HIIT was done 50-60 years ago. The irony is that the whole "endurance training" emphasis started in the early 1970s as a response to the number of athletes who had been burned out and their careers destroyed by too much HIIT training, which was the standard in the 1960s. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

prettygirlhoward

bump

ahamm002

To the OP:

There are several reasons for all of the confusion on the HIIT vs endurance cardio debate:

1. There is A LOT MORE to exercise than just calories burned. There are hormonal changes that take place in the body. For example, if you take in a 100 extra calories in a day, how does your body decide what percentage should be turned into fat, and what percentage should be turned into muscle? If you do HIIT, you'll likely have a higher percentage turned into muscle. This will in turn increase your metabolism further. Likewise, if you havea 100 calorie net negative, how much fat versus how much muscle is burned?

2. There is a big difference b/w what happens in real life, and what happens in a lab. In real life, people doing endurance cardio often don't get very good workouts b/c they get into a rut and do the same work out every day in "their comfort zone." Hello failure. Whereas, if you're continually pushing yourself past your comfort zone like in HIIT, then you know you're always getting a good work out.

3. There is a lot we don't fully understand. But most studies often show HIIT crushing endurance. Yet people try and use logic (despite a lack complete understanding of the science) to minimize the results. For example, we recently learned that people who work out more tend to burn significantly more calories when they're cold (but not shivering) then sedentary people. No calculations can take things like that and hormonal changes into account accurately.

meerkat70

If that is the case, aham, how can you, logically, be so certain of your view? How do you *know*, if none of this can be appropriately or accurately measured?

I'm sorry, but I find azdak a bit more convincing.