Stationary bike & HIIT question please.

TAWrensong
TAWrensong Posts: 4 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've been using myfitnesspal a whole, first about 3 years ago when I lost a stone or so. This time since mid January, I started at 10st 11lb (151 lb) and weighed in this morning at 9st 8.4lb (134.4 lb). When I first started my goal weight was 134lb but I'm almost at that and still have a big pouch of tummy fat to lose.
This brings me to my question - I use a stationary bike daily and aim to do at least 300 calories. If I'm eating a treat meal I will do extra - ie on Friday we had Chinese takeaway so I did 800 calories in my bike. I've heard a lot about HIIT and tried it once and it almost killed me! I felt so ill after that it's kind of put me off! Also I always enter my stationary bike calories into myfitnesspal - I can't do that for HIIT. Can. Do a combined workout of my normal stationary cycling with a 20 minute HIIT at the end? Will this help my fat burning?
(I've revised my goal weight to be 8st 7lb now - so another 15lb to go) thanks for reading this far!

Replies

  • 6pkdreamer
    6pkdreamer Posts: 180 Member
    I do HIIT on a stationary bike a few times a week fot about 10 minutes max. HIIT or Tabata is more time efficient than longer session but I believe maybe not every day say 48 hours between sessions. I use a Polar HRM to check I'm in the zone. I use a Tabata app on my phone by Digital Rivers works well. Increases your metabolism for up to 24 hours after.
    Just remember 80% diet and only 20% exercise will affect your weight. Much easier to share a main course than to slug it out later exercising.
    There are many health benifits of excercise paticulary HIIT
  • TAWrensong
    TAWrensong Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you for your reply. :)
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited April 2016
    There is a whole load of woo around HIIT unfortunately - a lot from trainers trying to make something simple more complicated to sell their routines or set expectations of remarkable results. Claims such as doubling EPOC ("afterburn") for example sounds impressive until you realise double of very little is still very little!

    Beware some of the studies too - they appear to have loaded the dice to achieve the desired outcome.
    There are definite training benefits from intervals in general and, for many, from HIIT in particular. But there are also many benefits from steady state cardio - remember steady state doesn't just mean low intensity just as intervals doesn't just mean HIIT.

    For maximum calorie burning (if that is your goal - it's not mine BTW) then intervals is not the way to go. For a rounded exercise routine then a mixture of steady state and intervals (in their overall program) would be better for most people when alligned to their goals and capabilities.

    Worth a read....
    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/stead-state-versus-intervals-finally-a-conclusion.html/

    At least it seems what you tried really was HIIT as the term seems to get applied to everything these days - "tried it once and it almost killed me!" Sounds about right.

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