Does anyone else do HIIT?
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robs_ready
Posts: 1,488 Member
Hello,
I've recently started don't HIIT because I find cardio quite boring and find short intervals more enjoyable.
I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
Are there any other benefits of doing HIIT, and should I still do some cardio anyway?
Thank you
I've recently started don't HIIT because I find cardio quite boring and find short intervals more enjoyable.
I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
Are there any other benefits of doing HIIT, and should I still do some cardio anyway?
Thank you
0
Replies
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I do, and the main reason to do cardio is, as the name implies, for your cardiovascular health.1
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robs_ready wrote: »Hello,
I've recently started don't HIIT because I find cardio quite boring and find short intervals more enjoyable.
I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
Are there any other benefits of doing HIIT, and should I still do some cardio anyway?
Thank you
If you can do 30 minutes of interval sprints, you're not doing HIIT; you're doing aerobic intervals (there's a difference).
Here's an article by Lyle McDonald which talks about the calorie burn factors of steady state vs. HIIT: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/steady-state-versus-intervals-and-epoc-practical-application.html/
He also has a more detailed two-part article about steady state vs. interval training which begins here: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/steady-state-and-interval-training-part-1.html/
Both worth a read.2 -
rankinsect wrote: »I do, and the main reason to do cardio is, as the name implies, for your cardiovascular health.
I know what Cardio is and what it's for. I'm interested in knowing me about HIIT and anaerobic exercises apart from weight training which I already do a lot of.0 -
robs_ready wrote: »Hello,
I've recently started don't HIIT because I find cardio quite boring and find short intervals more enjoyable.
I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
Are there any other benefits of doing HIIT, and should I still do some cardio anyway?
Thank you
If you can do 30 minutes of interval sprints, you're not doing HIIT; you're doing aerobic intervals (there's a difference).
Here's an article by Lyle McDonald which talks about the calorie burn factors of steady state vs. HIIT: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/steady-state-versus-intervals-and-epoc-practical-application.html/
He also has a more detailed two-part article about steady state vs. interval training which begins here: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/steady-state-and-interval-training-part-1.html/
Both worth a read.
Thanks for this, very helpful0 -
I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
There's a lot of outlandish claims made as to "fat burning". Always keep correlation and causation in mind.....
The highest calorie burn would be the highest intensity you could maintain for the full 30 minutes.
As a guess your intervals and "moderate" cardio could be about the same (but could be less, or more...).
Beware that interval training is far harder to get an accurate calorie burn estimate than steady state, the intervals and recovery periods throw off HRM estimates badly.
Are there any other benefits of doing HIIT, and should I still do some cardio anyway?
Depends on your goals, current capabilities, what other exercise you do.
A lot of structured programs include both steady state and intervals. Different pros and cons.
But as you don't like steady state then the exercise you like wins hands down.
Beware studies that show HIIT being far superior to steady state as they tend to end the study at the point where the initial rapid improvements from HIIT tails off and steady state continues to progress.
I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time.
For my goals as a cyclist I do a majority of steady state (which doesn't mean it's low intensity) but supplement with interval training, but typically long duration intervals with various patterns from 2:30 to 12 minute intervals.
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...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".0 -
...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".
How do I know when I'm in the right zone? Am I at 80-90% max heart rate?0 -
robs_ready wrote: »...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".
How do I know when I'm in the right zone? Am I at 80-90% max heart rate?
Depends on whose protocol you're going by. Dr. Izumi Tabata called for 20-second max efforts at 170% of your VO2max with 10-second recovery sessions in between; Drs. Little and Gibala assessed it as 60-second intervals at 95% of VO2max interspersed with 75-second recovery intervals. There are various other protocols out there, but the bottom line is that it's a maximal effort followed by a short recovery period (hence the "High Intensity" part of the HIIT acronym).
A simpler way to gauge it would probably be something like this: If you went for 30 minutes, are sweaty, tired and out of breath afterward, it wasn't HIIT. If you went for 20 minutes (including warmup and cooldown), your muscles are on fire from the lactic acid, you're gasping for breath, seeing spots before your eyes and feel like you're going to puke, it was HIIT.3 -
robs_ready wrote: »...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".
How do I know when I'm in the right zone? Am I at 80-90% max heart rate?
Depends on whose protocol you're going by. Dr. Izumi Tabata called for 20-second max efforts at 170% of your VO2max with 10-second recovery sessions in between; Drs. Little and Gibala assessed it as 60-second intervals at 95% of VO2max interspersed with 75-second recovery intervals. There are various other protocols out there, but the bottom line is that it's a maximal effort followed by a short recovery period (hence the "High Intensity" part of the HIIT acronym).
A simpler way to gauge it would probably be something like this: If you went for 30 minutes, are sweaty, tired and out of breath afterward, it wasn't HIIT. If you went for 20 minutes (including warmup and cooldown), your muscles are on fire from the lactic acid, you're gasping for breath, seeing spots before your eyes and feel like you're going to puke, it was HIIT.
I'm definitely not working hard enough then, thanks for this!0 -
I have done HITT in the past but stress fractures made get away from it. I did 100 to 200m sprints with 30 sec rest. Burned a lot of fat and my legs got stronger. It was just too hard on my body at the time. Instead, I now do HITT on a spinning bike. Not as beneficial, but get a burn nonetheless.1
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robs_ready wrote: »I've read mixed things on it as a fat lot burner. Also I'd like to know if 30 minutes of interval sprints burns more calories than 30 minutes of moderate cardio.
For context, I'm a runner. My anaerobic training comes in the latter portion of a training cycle just before the taper as it's a method of increasing maximum output.
With that in mind I'm not really using these sessions as a means of burning calories. The mileage I do means I struggle to keep up anyway. That said, having worked it out, including EPOC, a sprint session lasting c 30 minutes is about the same as a steady state, threshold pace, run for 30 minutes.
That's because in a sprint session I'll warm up for ten minutes, do 6-8 cycles of 100m sprint with a 60 second recovery, then cool down for another 10. In that time about 75-80% of the running is at easy pace anyway.
As upthread, lots of outlandish claims about HIIT, but when you analyse it you'll see much of that content is nonsense.
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I love HIIT and when I do it on the treadmill, I usually do either 45 on/45 off or 30 on/30 off. I will run as fast as I can to the point where I feel I will fall off the treadmill if I go any faster, and then jog pretty slow for recovery. I usually do about 12-15 minutes of this and I usually feel a little pukey after I'm done.
The benefits is you get a really good workout in a very short amount of time and like you said, it's a lot more interesting than moderate cardio. Also, I have gotten better results in body composition with this style of training than just regular cardio. Other HIITs I do include moves like burpees with a pushup, jump squats, jump lunges, etc which are also very effective.2 -
I do some HIIT here and there to mix it up, but personally the cardio benefit is limited IMHO. I think I've improved my cardio base quite a bit more with longer intervals at high intensities, along with lower effort training for longer periods. But I've put more time into the alternate training as well.
Fat burning? Still comes down to deficit IMO, but the HIIT will deplete glycogen quicker.
I'd love to convert the elliptical to rotational, or buy a good power measure for the bike, for HIIT type stuff. Once I started exceeding the meter for instant output on the elliptical doing Tabata level stuff got sort of hit and miss. At those output levels, keeping track of data gets harder quick.
I personally haven't found recovery from Tabata type stuff that terrible. But I think many are not able to gauge power and are going all out vs outputting to a certain power level. That alone could really change the picture quickly in regards to how many intervals they could do, HR rise, and obviously recovery.0 -
Funny how everyone is doing HIIT (and liking it) have no way to guage the intensity of what they are doing.4
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Funny how everyone is doing HIIT (and liking it) have no way to guage the intensity of what they are doing.
Don't include me in that everyone. I've just exceeded the instantaneous readout on my metered machine, leaving me at "keep going but guess" levels until I can calculate it after the fact.1 -
Cycling and Tapout XT works for me.0
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...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".
This exactly. I don't do HIIT regularly now, but I "thought" i was doing it in the past. I WAS doing interval running on a treadmill, and it wasn't close to HIIT (you can't really do HIIT on a treadmill, it's unsafe and transitions too slow).
HIIT is supposed to be balls to the walls, 100% maximum effort. The first time I finished doing real HIIT on an eliptical I was walking like a drunk and almost fell over, and wanted to puke and die. If you don't feel like that at the end of it, you're probably doing it wrong!0 -
...I'm probably in the minority in believing (genuine) HIIT and weight training is a bad mix, both create stress and need recovery time...
Lyle addresses that issue and recommends no more than 1-2 HIIT sessions per week due to the increased demands upon the CNS and the recovery issues it can create/exacerbate.
As you touched upon above with your parenthetical comment, most people who think they're doing HIIT aren't really doing HIIT. For those who actually are, it's highly strenuous and very taxing. HIIT, as the name implies, is intervals done at absolute maximal effort bracketed by recovery periods. The fatigue and exertion is cumulative and places very high demands upon the muscular, circulatory and nervous systems. While it has benefits, there's certainly such a thing as "too much of a good thing".
This exactly. I don't do HIIT regularly now, but I "thought" i was doing it in the past. I WAS doing interval running on a treadmill, and it wasn't close to HIIT (you can't really do HIIT on a treadmill, it's unsafe and transitions too slow).
HIIT is supposed to be balls to the walls, 100% maximum effort. The first time I finished doing real HIIT on an eliptical I was walking like a drunk and almost fell over, and wanted to puke and die. If you don't feel like that at the end of it, you're probably doing it wrong!
The effort level and number of work cycles varies quite a bit on accepted HIIT workouts. The Tabata HIIT isn't nearly as taxing as I thought it might be, and I think it would be less taxing on a bike vs elliptical. Not that it's easy by any stretch, but not puke worthy.
I'd say without a way to meter power it would be easy to overcook output early on, and leave yourself in puke territory after a few intervals.0 -
IE1 protocol? Only Olympic speedskaters, as test subjects, who can manage over 8 cycles of 20 seconds "on" and 10 seconds "off" intervals of 170% of VO2 Max at 85 rpm four times a week plus a day of steady-state training remained in the study, "not taxing", you're joking right? (By the way, anything less than four times a week is not IE1 protocol aka Tabata HIIT.)
If IE1 is too easy, try IE2 protocol. Not sure what's the point since Tabata's study found that physiological index magnitudes deteriorated in the last 10 sec of each repetition of IE2 and IE1 protocol taxed both the anaerobic and aerobic energy releasing systems almost maximally, but go for broke.0 -
robs_ready wrote: »I know what Cardio is and what it's for. I'm interested in knowing me about HIIT and anaerobic exercises apart from weight training which I already do a lot of.
I don't think there's any benefit to training your anaerobic system without a strong aerobic base, personally.4
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