what are some benefits of hiit workouts?:o

bellacelina2
bellacelina2 Posts: 92 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
so I have recently taken interest in hiit, and tried it for the first time today, 15 seconds with sprinting as fast as I possibly can and then 1 min rest, and I managed to do it for 7 times, but to say the least, I can really feel it in my legs today, theyre dead hahaha, I was wondering, what are some benefits with hiit? I am in a calorie deficit, does a hiit workout 2-3 times a week aid well with weight loss or fat burning:)? Im trying to find a workout that I find enjoyable in long term, so I was thinking trying hiit out and ice skating when ice skating opens up again after covid is over^^ thank you guys sooo much for the help!!

Replies

  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,399 Member
    You will likely find out what your real maximum heart rate is.

    You will find out how tired you can make certain body parts in minutes.

    You will learn to push through at times when you think you can't.

    You might actually enjoy the variety!


    Overall there is no significant benefit to HIIT that you can't accomplish with other forms of training. But there are aspects some like, including the variety vs other forms of working out. As for me personally, too much high intensity stuff stirs my hunger more usually, so working it in with a calorie deficit may or may not work depending on how you do with it.

    As a side note to your path, one of the more well known HIIT protocols was developed to help speed skaters. If you are a proficient skater you might be able to combine the two.
  • JintheSouth
    JintheSouth Posts: 44 Member
    I think one of the benefits is because you’re getting your heart rate way up during those sprinting intervals, you burn more calories in a short amount of time so you don’t have to spend as much time working out. For instance, you may burn 400 calories doing brisk walking for an hour, but burn that same amount in a 20-30 minute hiit workout because of the higher intensity than walking.

    I’ve been doing jump rope hiit for the past few months, where I alternate jump rope intervals with body weight exercises and I’ve noticed more changes in my body and increased endurance than when I was doing lower intensity, steady state exercises. Plus, doing hiit breaks up the monotony of just doing straight jump rope, which can get boring for me.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,989 Member
    L1zardQueen wrote: »
    It gets you moving, no special benefits that I am aware of.
    Actually if you do it progressively, you increase your VO2 max and muscular endurance.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    Duly noted.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Wow - someone referencing HIIT is actually talking about HIIT!!!

    There are benefits for sure - may not matter to your ultimate goals - in which case it could just be a more interesting workout for you.
    In which case go for it with caveats.
    Don't think of the workout as being for fat loss though.

    Just make sure you have some underlying miles on your legs first - it's hard on the body. 2-3 times weekly isn't even done by pro-runners. Good to have 6 weeks of running on the legs already.

    What you did has been described as the closest to weight lifting for cardio without the lifting.
    The way to increase some muscle mass if done for a long period of time.
    Of course it may be muscle not used in regular running, which is why hill sprints to keep stride length shortened is recommended sometimes.

    Here's a study on it that is usually the basis of it being said to be a fat burner. But it's just where the fat was pulled from, due to it being like lifting, it was the repair to the muscles that used the fat there. Same as regular diet.
    https://exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET

    Since it's eating less than you burn in total that causes fat loss - it really isn't going to be the biggest effect for that.
    Except it's not really a big calorie burner - not compared to just going as hard as you can for a chunk of time, that still allows you to do it the next day.
    So it's not going to allow you to eat more that may help you to sustain to diet.

    Would you rather eat 1500 and burn daily 2000 with no exercise?
    Eat 1750 burning 2250 doing HIIT?
    Or eat 2000 burning 2500 doing a straight hard cardio workout?

    Just rough numbers for what you could get out of a workout. Think whole body though, strength training always good, some heart health good, being more active daily helps increase your daily burn to for eating more if desired.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    I can only give you my experience and I'm older than you--66. When my gym and pool closed here in Italy over 2 months ago I started jogging around a nearby park for 45 min. Now it was slow jogging, but it wasn't hard for me to keep going for that length of time. I decided to try power walking--5 min walking, 5 min medium pace, and then 5 min as fast as I can without breaking into a run, repeat. It is much more of a workout. I've been doing this for a little over a month and I notice a difference--more endurance ( I have trouble keeping to the slow walk pace, and tend to just do medium and fast). My weight hasn't changed, but I'm hard all over, no squishy parts.

    I think you should just try it and see how it goes. I alternate days with yoga, stretching, and aerobics.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Refreshing that unusually you are actually doing maximal effort cardio intervals when talking about HIIT.

    It has fitness benefits (VO2 max boosting for example) and for aging athletes in particular some (just some!) high intensity exercise makes a big difference in maintaining athletic ability for longer.

    But it's very taxing, a poor fit with weight training as both require recovery, a low calorie burner despite the ludicrous numbers guessed by a previous respondent due to the recovery intervals dragging down the average and it can also be highly unpleasant.

    For your goals and situation:
    Being in a calorie deficit is a stress on your body, weight lifting is a stress and HIIT is another stress - that's a pretty poor combination and unless you have particular fitness goals from the HIIT then I don't think it's a good choice at all. Be very conservative with your rate of weight loss as you are asking a lot from your body, train like an athlete - eat like an athlete.
    It's a particularly poor choice for ALL of your cardio to be high intensity, in a sensible cardio training programme it's more of a condiment than a main course.
    Fat burning comes from a calorie deficit and being a short duration, low average calorie burn cardio activity it doesn't look a good match if you intend your exercise rather than your diet to create a deficit.
    Enjoyable? Although it's satisfying to push your limits, I wouldn't call HIIT enjoyable! It is more mentally involving though.
    Ice skating - good choice if you intend sprint skating but interval training doesn't have to be maximal effort. (e.g. I'm a road cyclist in an area with a lot of hills so my hard interval training is for minutes at sub-maximal level to mimic those hills rather than seconds at maximal effort.)
  • RashadLavelle
    RashadLavelle Posts: 46 Member
    One of the best benefits is that you shred body fat like crazy. Best example. Look at track athletes that are sprinters vs marathon runners. You keep your muscle while burning fat, rather than burning fat and muscle. Plus you can burn more calories in a shorter period.
  • bellacelina2
    bellacelina2 Posts: 92 Member
    thank you all so much for the answersss, I´m so grateful, I read through all of your messages<3:) I got a lot of helpful advice, thank you all so much for taking time out of your day to come with advice^^!! I hope you all have a wonderful fitness journey and wonderful holidays:))!
  • cgvet37
    cgvet37 Posts: 1,189 Member
    I can burn 300 plus calories with about 12-15 minutes of actual work. I absolutely hate steady state cardio. So HIIT works better for me, and doesn't take a lot of time.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited December 2020
    There is some indication that HIIT can lengthen (or at least keep the same length) telomeres -- telomeres are the endcaps on your DNA. When they shorten, it contributes to aging. So there is some indication that HIIT is an aging workout, at least at a cellular level. The other thing they have found protective of telomere length is longer cardio sessions. Weight lifting, though important, did nothing to lengthen telomeres.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325134827_The_effect_of_high_intensity_interval_training_on_telomere_length_and_telomerase_activity_in_non-athlete_young_men
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    RashadLavelle wrote: »
    One of the best benefits is that you shred body fat like crazy. Best example. Look at track athletes that are sprinters vs marathon runners. You keep your muscle while burning fat, rather than burning fat and muscle. Plus you can burn more calories in a shorter period.

    While it's true that sprinting increases growth hormone from the large lactic acid load, as a former competitive track and field sprinter and jumper, we also spent a fair bit of time in the weight room...mainly explosive movements like Olympic lifting and such, while my long distance teammates spent little to no time in the weight room as having more muscle mass or explosive power was of little to no benefit to them from a performance standpoint.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    Various folks here - heybales and sijomial come to mind without going back to review, but there were others - are giving you good, science-based info. Some other claims (about mega calorie burns and muscle effects) sound like they come straight from the gee-whiz blogosphere. Don't believe the gee-whiz blogosphere. HIIT is seriously over-rated and over-hyped these days. It's the exercise equivalent of a fad diet.

    It has some uses and benefits, as part of a balanced training plan, from a fitness/performance standpoint. Likewise, probably, for health, as a spice to a well-rounded program. Done as a steady exercise (daily or close), it's over-fatiguing for the benefits it delivers (and it *doesn't* deliver some benefits that are needed for well-rounded fitness/health). Heart rate monitors will seriously over-report calorie burn, especially for HIIT (unlike what you're doing) that has a strength component. (I've included some HIIT in my training at relevant times, though I don't do it much anymore since not competing.)

    If the HIIT is fun for you, that's important. If something's fun, we're more likely to keep it up. If doing it frequently because it's fun, watch for any signs of over-fatigue. Try to get some moderate steady state in the mix (maybe some of your skating?), for best fitness/health, plus some strength training.
  • RashadLavelle
    RashadLavelle Posts: 46 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    RashadLavelle wrote: »
    One of the best benefits is that you shred body fat like crazy. Best example. Look at track athletes that are sprinters vs marathon runners. You keep your muscle while burning fat, rather than burning fat and muscle. Plus you can burn more calories in a shorter period.

    Ehhh - track athletes also hit the weights for upper body. As well as lower.
    Marathon runners have negative effect from any extra weight carried - even extra leg muscle beyond what is needed. So no workouts to gain it.

    Looked at triathletes who also run marathons at end of it all, but have need of upper body doing swimming.
    The sprinting doesn't have much of anything to do with the effects you describe.
    That's rather just working out what's needed.

    Diet shreds the body fat - the types of workouts determines what's underneath it.
    But it's not a high calorie burner.
    If going by HR-based calculations and the inflated value given it may appear so - but that is not true.

    Not really. I used to run track for years, and Most of my family are track athletes. The sprinting focuses on the type II muscle fibers. Strength training does help but, it's very little compared to the conditioning that they do. Out of all the years I've been running track, weights has very little to the definition of a sprinters physique.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,989 Member
    heybales wrote: »
    So you are aware then the statement sprinting burns fat compared to marathons burning fat and muscle doesn't make sense because during the workout your sprinting is actually a vast majority glucose burn.

    Not a whole lot of fat burn going on during the sprint effort, compared to marathoners.

    Fat and glucose for marathoners. And if they set the pace wrong, too much glucose, run out, hit the wall, and limited to a pace (crawling sometimes) that allows fat/lactic acid to provide the energy.

    Perhaps you mean something else about sprinting burning fat.

    Also each sport tends to pull people that genetically already have a ratio of type I/II that benefits them, some have ratio that allows going to either sport with decent performance, until you get up to upper reaches of competition.

    I think you'll find most the disagreement to your statement by many here is you are saying the workouts caused the body build differences in fat %.
    Just not the case since competitive marathoners aren't carrying extra fat either.
    Competitive sprinters just have extra muscle for what they need in areas you can see it. I know many that do lift weights to get that - you and your family did not.

    Many top sprinters do though.
    https://jackedgorilla.com/usain-bolt-workout-routine/

    You can find others if desired.
    THIS. Though I wasn't super fast, I did track in college. I ran the 200m and we did lift weights. We did explosive training movements mostly.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Yes - while I was lifting even in high school, the track guys would be in the room, and the wrestlers would be making their way through the weights room to the boiler room in their plastic suits.

    And track coach was having his guys doing the lifting - not sure they'd do it on their own initiative.
    Wrestlers seemed to be pretty inspired though to go sweat off some pounds, from the sounds of it anyway.
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
    As others have said HIIT is over rated and will NOT have you burn 399 in 12 min or whatever other nonsense you’ve heard. There are other benefits already mentioned, so if you enjoy it keep doing it. If you’re only doing it for weight loss, there are better options (mainly CICO since you can’t out exercise a bad diet).

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