HIIT - What do you think of my program?

Hi everybody,

I've been going to gym for 7 weeks. I am 24 years old and I weigh 79kg. Until yesterday, my cardio was running at the same pace which is 10-11 km/h for 25-30 minutes. Recently I've made so much reading and found out that long and intensive cardio sessions could end up losing muscle tissue. For that reason, I just started to do HIIT regime.

Yesterday's cardio training:

30 sec 16km/h running 60 sec 7km/h fast walking
12 set of this training regime with 4 minutes of warm up (9km/h running) and 4 minutes of cool down.

Have anyone tried the HIIT workouts? If so, how did you do that, how long, how many repetations? Is 16km/h pace enough for HIIT? Because I read an article that tells 20-22 km/h pace is necessary for the HIIT.

In my routine training I begin with treadmill (approximately 35 minutes with warm up) and do weight lifting exercises for 1 hour. After that 20-25 minutes of elliptical bicycle (%75-80 of my max heart rate). I do that 3 times a week.

My daily calorie intake is 1400 kcal.

Any suggestions?

Replies

  • randjonw
    randjonw Posts: 9
    Isn't cardio eating away your muscle a myth?
  • Christinamarie77
    Christinamarie77 Posts: 50 Member
    I sometimes throw in 3 mins at no resistance on the elliptical and then 1 minute as high as you can handle repeat repeat repeat. 25 mins.
    I also hit our local track and do 1 minute walking, 30 seconds sprinting for about 3 to 6 miles depending on how tired you are.

    anything that gets your heart rate really elevated and then gives you a "break" to bring the rate back down and repeat is considered HIIT.
    AND IT TRULY DOES WORK!!! last year it dropped me 10lbs, 12 inches and 3 pants sizes in 90 days. ....I of course slacked off and gained it back BUT it does work.

    Good luck and feel free to add me if you need any support!!!
  • phjorg1
    phjorg1 Posts: 642 Member
    thats not hiit. thats called intervals son.

    HIIT is done at 170% VO2MAX. Give or take. If you can keep any sort of pace for 1 minute, you're prob not going near fast enough.

    to put this into perspective, thats a 22.5 second 100m sprint time. Thats comparable to what a 6 year old can run... Any able non morbidly obese adult with no disability conditions should be able to be 16 seconds easy. And that should be your goal intensity for any sort of HIIT training.

    If you want to try this on a tredmill, I'll make it easy for you. Keep the tredmill OFF. Yup, don't even turn the darn thing on. And just start walking on it fighting against it's natural resistance. (most tredmillls when off don't have a brake, and the tred just free moves) Then after a minute of doing that, it's time to sprint. Go 20 seconds full balls to the wall sprinting. then back to a walk for 40 seconds. (or some sort of variant of this timing) Do that about 10 times or so. You won't be able to go for longer.
  • Morgaath
    Morgaath Posts: 679 Member
    Snippits from the linked article:
    Cardio does NOT hurt your ability to gain muscle at all and it might even HELP you to ADD muscle mass.

    The reason that cardio has gotten a bad reputation for burning muscle is that most often, people couple drastic diets with cardio in their effort to “cut” after “bulking”. Its the drastic caloric reduction that is responsible for the muscle loss, not the cardio! If you don’t consume enough protein and enough calories, your body will cannibalize your muscles – a good safe limit is not to reduce your calories by more than 20% below your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), to find a muscle-safe caloric intake for dieting please use my calorie calculator. Proper nutrition while dieting is key to insuring you don’t lose muscle mass. You can lose weight with an all-twinkie diet but you will lose lots of muscle at the same time!

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/does-cardio-burn-muscle/
  • grantdumas7
    grantdumas7 Posts: 802 Member
    thats not hiit. thats called intervals son.

    HIIT is done at 170% VO2MAX. Give or take. If you can keep any sort of pace for 1 minute, you're prob not going near fast enough.

    to put this into perspective, thats a 22.5 second 100m sprint time. Thats comparable to what a 6 year old can run... Any able non morbidly obese adult with no disability conditions should be able to be 16 seconds easy. And that should be your goal intensity for any sort of HIIT training.

    If you want to try this on a tredmill, I'll make it easy for you. Keep the tredmill OFF. Yup, don't even turn the darn thing on. And just start walking on it fighting against it's natural resistance. (most tredmillls when off don't have a brake, and the tred just free moves) Then after a minute of doing that, it's time to sprint. Go 20 seconds full balls to the wall sprinting. then back to a walk for 40 seconds. (or some sort of variant of this timing) Do that about 10 times or so. You won't be able to go for longer.
    Exactly this.
  • ugurinam3
    ugurinam3 Posts: 4 Member
    thats not hiit. thats called intervals son.

    HIIT is done at 170% VO2MAX. Give or take. If you can keep any sort of pace for 1 minute, you're prob not going near fast enough.

    to put this into perspective, thats a 22.5 second 100m sprint time. Thats comparable to what a 6 year old can run... Any able non morbidly obese adult with no disability conditions should be able to be 16 seconds easy. And that should be your goal intensity for any sort of HIIT training.

    If you want to try this on a tredmill, I'll make it easy for you. Keep the tredmill OFF. Yup, don't even turn the darn thing on. And just start walking on it fighting against it's natural resistance. (most tredmillls when off don't have a brake, and the tred just free moves) Then after a minute of doing that, it's time to sprint. Go 20 seconds full balls to the wall sprinting. then back to a walk for 40 seconds. (or some sort of variant of this timing) Do that about 10 times or so. You won't be able to go for longer.


    It is not 1 minute, I said I am doing 30 seconds.

    To sum up, you say if I am going to do this on a treadmill, I have to do at least 23 km/h pace according to your 6 year old non morbid obese and no disability example. Am I right?
  • grantdumas7
    grantdumas7 Posts: 802 Member
    30 sec is probably still to long. During the high intensity part you need to push yourself 100% Think of a wild animal chasing you. Can you sprint all out for 30 sec?
  • GiddyupTim
    GiddyupTim Posts: 2,819 Member
    Here is a link to a body-weight HIIT workout specifically designed to be scientifically correct.
    http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout/
  • phjorg1
    phjorg1 Posts: 642 Member
    thats not hiit. thats called intervals son.

    HIIT is done at 170% VO2MAX. Give or take. If you can keep any sort of pace for 1 minute, you're prob not going near fast enough.

    to put this into perspective, thats a 22.5 second 100m sprint time. Thats comparable to what a 6 year old can run... Any able non morbidly obese adult with no disability conditions should be able to be 16 seconds easy. And that should be your goal intensity for any sort of HIIT training.

    If you want to try this on a tredmill, I'll make it easy for you. Keep the tredmill OFF. Yup, don't even turn the darn thing on. And just start walking on it fighting against it's natural resistance. (most tredmillls when off don't have a brake, and the tred just free moves) Then after a minute of doing that, it's time to sprint. Go 20 seconds full balls to the wall sprinting. then back to a walk for 40 seconds. (or some sort of variant of this timing) Do that about 10 times or so. You won't be able to go for longer.


    It is not 1 minute, I said I am doing 30 seconds.

    To sum up, you say if I am going to do this on a treadmill, I have to do at least 23 km/h pace according to your 6 year old non morbid obese and no disability example. Am I right?
    I say not use a tredmill at all. But yes, 23km/h would start to be in the proper range. Thats a <16 second 100m which is where you would want to be.

    Also, I don't know if sarcasm, or misunderstanding. But the 16km/h pace is what your average 6 year old can run. I was using that as an example of why it's not very intense for a sprint for an adult. Thats all. One of the biggest disconnects I've found is what people are capable of, and what they end up doing are 2 different things. Machines are more of a hindrance than a help for this. Sure it's great for a jog, but when you want to push yourself, a machine just cripples most it seems.