HIIT | High Intensity Interval Training | Laws Of Intense Fat Burning







What is HIIT?



High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a combination of short-duration, high-endurance set of exercises with sharp recovery periods which holds the fundamentals of anaerobic cardiovascular workouts throughout the complete session. 

HIIT has the ability to burn the unwanted fat of your body, twice or thrice as effective as a regular gym workout or anaerobic cardio session. Around 10 minutes of HIIT can burn more calories than half an hour struggle on the treadmill. You possibly be looking to lose some weight but the vision of long-term painful weightlifting with slow gradual improvement makes it difficult to make up the mind. Honestly, losing weight is a more tedious task than gaining which may take years of work. No problem! HIIT is the best approach to your solution which can almost cut the duration to half or lesser, depending on your performance. 

In 1996, a Japanese Scientist, Dr. Izumi Tabata, and his team of researchers conducted an experiment among two athlete groups on purpose for studying the effects of moderate-intensity endurance(Group A) and HIIT (Group B) on anaerobic capacity. Group A subjected to a 1-hour workout routine, 5 days a week for a total of six weeks, whereas Group B involved in 5 minutes of Tabata Workout(a form of HIIT), for six weeks. The conclusions were fantastic were Group B benefited in both cardio as well as muscle transformation- Read more 

If you wish to perform HIIT which has numerous advantages over other fat losing exercises, you need to be honest with the rules here. Well, there isn't any limitation to select a universal duration of this training and unlike strength workouts, it doesn't have to be lengthy like an hour or more.  



HIIT vs Cardio



Both kinds are subjected to frequent self-weight exercises which increases the heart rate leading to high oxygen intake & greater calorie burn. The key difference for HIIT is, the level of work and rate of movement is increased which makes it an anaerobic form of training. 

To understand it better with an example, Sprint is an intense form of workout which has a shorter duration because the body burns loads of energy in the form of ATP(Adenosine triphosphate) during fast running, resulting in a high rate of limited ATP production with no sufficient(anaerobic) oxygen supply, leaving you out of breath. And when you finally stop after sprinting, your breathe with all the life you've left, observing your high heart rate, faster blood through veins, and increased body temperature. For the next few minutes, you don't stop sweating continuously. This overall process is an anaerobic form of workout which combines with similar ones to term HIIT.

On the other hand, Cardiovascular is a generalized term that includes both aerobic and anaerobic form with low-intensity exercises. You need to have good flexibility, healthy bone-joints, and lots of stamina for HIIT, As a beginner, you should stick with low intense cardiovascular exercises for the first few weeks followed by HIIT. 


The Afterburn Effect (EPOC)



Studies have been published about various benefits of HIIT and the 'Afterburn Effect' it reflects. This means a process of burning calories maximum up-to 24 hours post-workout, also known as EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption). Once your workout is over and you’re going through your daily routine, your body’s metabolism will continue to burn more calories than when at complete rest. 

If you do a moderate level HIIT Course, you're going to have an EPOC effect of around 2 to 8 hours. The total calorie burn might be anywhere from 150 to 200 units in the course of that time, which on average will torch 20 calories per hour. 

Science professionals already published diverse advantages of HIIT associated with benefits in health-related subjects and people with physical as well as mental health complications like schizophrenia etc.

Another research says the performance of HIIT increases your lipid metabolism for recovery when compared with continuous aerobic exercise training, which will favor the weight loss process in a lesser amount of time. 



How to Switch to HIIT



If you're familiar with cardio exercises, that will straight away be helping you with your HIIT session. All you need is to sync your workout with a timer. The rules are pretty simple - work really hard, rest, then work really hard again. Each exercise duration need not be more than a minute followed by 10 to 15 seconds of sharp interval. 

Always engage in a 5-minute warm-up session before your HIIT workout to prevent muscular strains and other injuries. Here is a 10 minute HIIT video session by THENX(Youtube) to try for beginners which will give you a good idea of how to manage your time and exercises together. 






Follow the timer at the top right of the display and give your best to match with the demonstrators. The green impression notifies the workout engagement whereas the red will allow resting. 



Plan your own HIIT 


1. Choose your exercises and Pick your total timing. 


According to your energy level, you can choose your own workout structure which imposes more frequent movements with a session time of 7 to 15 minutes for an intermediate level course. 

However, HIIT is not supposed to be longer than half an hour the session. Experts across the world have said that if your workout lasts any more than 30-minutes, you're probably not working hard enough to optimize the benefits of HIIT. 

2. Determine your Workout/Rest Ratio.


For example, 30 seconds of Work with another 30 seconds of rest. The break limit is 1:2 which means, do not exceed your break time more than twice of your exercise time. If you feel more exhausted during an exercise, try not to increase your break time and you may slow down with reps frequency. 


3. Session time will decide the activity time.


If you plan a quick 5 minutes HIIT workout session, each of the exercises will shrink to a 15-to-20-second duration followed by a 10 to 20 seconds break. Similarly, longer sessions will hold a little longer duration of all exercise sets. 


 4. Long Intervals to recover.

Long intervals aren't really a good idea here because that will possibly convert your workout to Aerobic Which is not fully subjected to HIIT benefits. Avoid longer breaks in 10 minutes of training or lesser.  In case of more than that you may include one to two longer breaks in between when you can moderately hydrate your body with simply water or glucose water.  

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