What is HIIT?

What is HIIT?

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training and involves doing a combination of short duration, high intensity strength and cardiovascular workouts.

Most HIIT workouts vary from as short as 4min up to 30min depending of the conditioning of the athlete involved. HIIT workouts have no specific formula but usually operate under the regime of 2:1 ratio of high intensity workout: recovery at 50% intensity.

An example of a short HIIT session could be as follows (HIIT exercise time 8min):

Warm-up: 3-5min

Routine:

• Press up into burpees (1min)
• Rope skipping at 50% (1min)
• Squats with shoulder press (1min)
• Star jumps (1min – 50%)
• Lunge jumps (1min)
• Rope skipping at 50% (1min)
• Squat jumps into bicep curls (1min)
• Star jumps at 50%

Cool down: 3-5min

Benefits and risks of HIIT

There are numerous benefits to HIIT training. They include the following:

• HIIT training has been shown to have an enhanced aerobic training effect compared to normal traditional long duration (constant) aerobic training. HIIT has also been shown to increase one’s resting metabolic rate (RMR) for the following 24hrs thereby potentially burning more calories on a continuous basis and may improve VO2 max consumption more than constant aerobic exercise.
• With conditioned athletes, it is sometimes difficult to constantly attain gains in one’s performance and physiologically, one tends to plateau in performance despite increasing training volume. HIIT tends to overcome this obstacle and has been shown to attain enhanced training performances when an increase in training frequency or volume has not been of benefit.
• As mentioned above, HIIT will increase one’s RMR. There have been conflicting studies as to whether HIIT or more long duration aerobic training is more beneficial in metabolising adipose tissue. As of yet, one cannot say which is more beneficial but to remember that whichever method one chooses, it is still going to be more beneficial than doing nothing!
• HIIT has been shown to reduce the insulin resistance levels and results in muscular conditioning that will have an improved glucose tolerance and skeletal muscle fat oxidation levels.
• Studies have shown that cardiovascular disease markers are lowered with regular HIIT. In fact, one study showed that people suffering from lifestyle-induced chronic diseases had more than double the benefit in terms of cardio-respiratory fitness compared to moderate intensity exercise.

There are a few risks associated with HIIT. These include the following:

• Due to high intensity, people with existing conditions need to be assessed and cleared to preform HIIT to ensure they are not a health risk to themselves. Heart rate monitoring is essential when performing HIIT to ensure it’s done safely.
• Technique is a priority and due to high level of fatigue, technique is usually the first thing that goes. This will make one more prone to injury and incorrect patterning (which could result in more chronic long term injuries/imbalances).