HIIT: HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING
Do you look forward to exercise? Or is it a task rather than a treat? If you have tried diet and exercise and not gotten results then you likely view exercise or “proper diet” as a task. Human nature dictates that we will tend to do things that bring us pleasure and that produce desired results. Do you have friends or family that love to work out and you just don’t get it? Well, likely those friends have gotten results or benefited measurably from their workouts and that makes them look forward to them rather than dread them.
If the idea of working out doesn’t light you up then maybe one of two or three things are the problem. One; you have done it and not gotten results, or two; you haven’t found a form of exercise that you enjoy, or maybe three; time is of the essence and exercise just takes too long.
As with everything in life, we are all looking to get the best “bang for our buck”. Well, it may be time for you to try HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training); it is just about the best Bang out there! I know, it sounds intense, and yes it is. But intense varies per individual. The idea of HIIT is that the intensity of the exercise is varied in short bursts of exercise, followed by short rest or recovery, then repeated. The level of intensity is the same for everyone, all out pushes, followed by recovery. However, what is not the same for everyone is what it takes to get to “all out”. For a young athlete it may be running at full speed, for a 65 year old new to exercise it may be simply walking more briskly then resting.
The results from HIIT are well documented and I can tell you from personal experience that there is nothing like HIIT (especially when combined with Circuit Training) to get quick and lasting results. At TW FitZone we have story after story about the results attained with this type of training. Just 15 minutes of HIIT can give the results that 1 hour of steady state training would provide. Imagine what 30-60 minutes of HIIT will provide……equivalent to 4 hours or steady state training!
