One of the greatest ways to exercise is to use a very quick and heavy workout with weights. This method is called High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT and is one of the greatest ways to have a weight workout.
The main advantages to doing this type of workout is that you keep your concentration for a very short amount of time. You get to have a very punishing workout in 20 minutes. And finally, you get to burn a lot of calories and raise your metabolism.
If you have tried interval training before it is really great and exhausting. If you would like to be like a top athlete and do this style of interval training here are a few tips.
How To Do High Intensity Interval Training
1. Use machines instead of free weights. You do not want to waste any time putting weights on bars as your break between exercises should only be 20 -30 seconds.
2. Use slightly lighter weights as your muscles will tire very quickly. And you are going to be gulping for breath really really soon.
3. Don’t rush through the exercises, rush between the exercises. Remember you are trying to push yourself during your sets and not rest between so the best method is to really push the weights hard on each set and then move to the next muscle group for the next set.
4. Try to not hit the same muscle group in consecutive sets. For example if you do bench press it will tax your pecs as well as triceps and shoulders so your next set should work your biceps or some part of your legs.
Compound exercises (the ones that hit more than one muscle group) are going to be tough to do in a High Intensity Interval Training session but if you can strategically work it our ahead of time your workout will be much tougher and better for you.
There are many people including me that believe that higher intensity workouts are much better for you than long low intensity workouts.
Give this method a try occasionally or even more often than that and the change up will really help to push your gains (or losses) much quicker than just regular workouts will.
Why Do High Intensity Interval Training?
High intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great way to both improve performance and to also lose quickly. HIIT is a different way of doing cardio with just a couple of rules to remember:
- First, your running session should only be 15-30 minutes.
- Secondly, sessions should have a 2:1 ratio in terms of time. so a session may be something as 60 seconds jog, 30 seconds sprint alternating
An example of a HIIT session may be as follows: Begin with a five minute warm up jog at about a medium intensity followed by a couple of minutes of stretching. Then start with a jog at about medium intensity for 60 seconds and then sprint hard for 30 to 60 seconds. Keep alternating this for 20 minutes or so and then at the end you can do some lower level jogging for 5 minutes as a cooldown.
This kind of workout is very difficult, especially the first few times that you try it and so it would be a good idea to only do it every second day and gauge how you are recovering from the workouts.
There have been a lot of studies on the high intensity interval training over the last few years and they seem to show that this is a very effective method for improving fitness as well as a nice change from regular running and workouts. One of the most important reasons that High intensity interval training works is because when you stress your body at the highest level you will burn a lot more fat then when running at a lower level jog.
Some proponents of HIIT say that to drop weight faster you would want to do this training on an empty stomach and I would have to agree with that. The idea is that since your body has no available calories to burn that it would replace muscle glycogen by burning fat. I would love to see more studies on this since it seems to make sense but there is not much evidence of it except for people saying that it seems to work.
Recently it has been shown that two weeks of HIIT can substantially improve insulin action in young healthy men. HIIT may therefore represent a viable method for prevention of type-2 diabetes.
The other side effect of this high intensity interval training method is that it will give you a much shorter workout.