HIIT - The Beginner's Guide. What You Need To Know

Exercise plays an important role in maintaining your overall health. If you have incorporated some moderate exercise into your weekly routine, then you have taken the first steps towards a healthier lifestyle. However, the benefits of incorporating HIIT to your regime are plentiful. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) refers to any workout, which alternates between intense bursts of activity and fixed periods of less activity. This could be as simple as running quickly on the treadmill for a minute followed by 2 minutes of slow walking. These types of intervals should be repeated at least 3 times. The benefits of incporpoting HIIT into your routine will take your fitness regime to new heights in next to no time. 

Time: HIIT sessions offer the perfect solution for time poor individuals with a 15-minute workout offering the same benefits as an hour on the treadmill. In fact, research has found that you can achieve more results with three, 15-minute HIIT sessions throughout the week than by pounding the pavement for an hour, three times a week. 

Heart Health: While it is advised you consult with your doctor prior to starting your HIIT sessions, especially if you have had previous health concerns, once you have received the all clear, pushing your anaerobic zone holds great benefits. Extreme training often leads to extreme results, increasing your cardio capabilities significantly.  

Afterburn: HIIT sessions come with the added benefit of ‘afterburn’. Pushing your body into an intense workout simultaneously kick starts a post-workout repair cycle. It forces your body to work even harder to cool down and repair, boosting your metabolism and ensuring you continue to burn calories for as long as 48 hours following your session. Some studies have found that the after effect of a HIIT session can burn more calories than going for a steady paced run. 

Practicality: The best part about HIIT is that it is an excuse buster. Don’t have a gym membership? That’s ok because you don’t need one. Don’t have gym equipment at home? That is also ok, you don’t need any equipment either. At the core of HIIT is ensuring you get your heart rate up. Running, jumping, or any combination of resistance training using your body weight, combined with bursts of cardio, can do this. Think jumping jacks combined with burpees.    

Muscle preservation: While cardio will help you shed those kilos, cardio alone is likely to also undo all that hard work put in during your weights sessions. Steady and prolonged cardio sessions are likely to encourage muscle loss as well as burning fat. HIIT sessions however encourage muscle maintenance while you tap into those fat stores.

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