Friday, April 26, 2013

What Is High Intensity Interval Training?

By Howe Russ


For many years, HIIT was one of the hidden secrets of the health and fitness industry reserved for elite athletes. With so many people trying to find out how to lose weight with more challenging and original methods, however, it has now become one of the most popular choices for gym members around the world.

Today we'll teach you the various styles of this form of exercise as well as explaining the various myths which surround it.

If you visit any gym around the world you will find two distinctly different types of people working out. Firstly, you will meet those who are happy to spend up to an hour working out at a steady pace on an exercise bike. Secondly, you'll meet those who deem cardiovascular exercise to be too boring and therefore they ignore it and train with weights instead.

The high intensity interval training formula is a middle ground between both ends of the scale which tends to appeal to members of either group.

It is rare that a particular training style provides two very different groups of fitness enthusiasts with equal benefits, but this does. Interval training has been proven to increase muscular hypertrophy, which is great for those looking to increase muscle mass. However, the fat loss benefits are equally as impressive so this style has truly universal appeal.

The main reason this type of training is so popular with those looking for the fat loss benefits it offers comes down to something called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, or E.P.O.C. for short. When you perform steady state cardiovascular activity you generally stop burning off calories at an increased rate the moment you finish your activity. With high intensity interval training, however, your body actually continues burning those calories at an increased rate for hours after you leave the gym, therefore increasing fat loss results.

Like any other type of training, however, there are numerous ways to perform it. Knowing which one best fits your overall goal will allow you to get superior results.

* The Tabata Method

* The Sport Specific Method

* Weight loss workouts.

The first method, known as Tabata Interval Training, was designed by Professor Tabata during the 1990's. This theory was put forward to increase the fitness level of elite athletes so most people who perform this particular style are already very experienced in the gym and consider themselves to be at an advanced level of overall fitness.

The Tabata method originated from Japan and was able to increase the VO2 Max of a group of elite athletes by a shocking 28% in just a few weeks.

Minus the necessary warm-up and cool-down periods, Tabata's involve working out for just four minutes in total. However, don't let the short time fool you into thinking that this is going to be easy. These four minutes will push you harder than any other form of interval training in existence today. The four minutes are split up into sections of 20 seconds at maximal intensity and 10 seconds of recovery, repeated eight times over.

Sport specific interval workouts can be applied to those looking to train for a particular event or improve performance for a team game. One good example of this can be performed using a rowing machine. Row 500 meters as fast as possible then perform push-ups for thirty seconds. Repeat this cycle five times and you have a great muscle building high intensity circuit class.

Finally, there are numerous people who are looking to use this training method to lose body fat. The method which has the most scientific research to support it comes from Canada. A thirty minute session which consisted of four minutes at a moderate intensity followed by a thirty second burst of maximal intensity returned superior results to any other time split.

So you can now clearly see that there are multiple benefits to performing high intensity interval training. No matter if your fitness goal is build muscle or lose body fat, there are a number of rewards waiting for those who have the determination to push themselves through this type of workout.

While HIIT is now a very popular choice among exercise enthusiasts around the world, it remains clouded in mystery thanks to the many various styles within it's category. As you can see from the three we have took you through today, it isn't rocket science. There are countless gym members out there who have been trying to figure out how to lose weight without spending endless hours on equipment they don't particularly enjoy. Thanks to this training style, now they can.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment