Weight Loss by HIIT!

If you've Googled anything about losing weight and exercise, you probably found that High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT is the rage!

What is HIIT?

HIIT is when there are alternating periods of intense exercise with periods of recovery.  For example, you go as hard as possible on an exercise for let’s say 1 or 2 minutes have a recovery period of say 4 minutes, and then repeat the cycle maybe 4 times.

Another thing about HIIT is that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the butt-kicking you gave it from a HIIT workout!   This means you’re burning calories/fat while sitting!  And it also speeds up speeds up your metabolism!

4 Benefits of HIIT

#1:  Less time to exercise.  You can do a hardcore HIIT workouts in 30 minutes or even less.  And the workouts are so intense, many experts recommend no more than 3X per week!

#2:  Burn more fat!  As I stated earlier, your body will burn fat/calories recovering after your workout!

#3:  You don’t need equipment or to join a gym!  These workouts can be as simple as running as fast as you can for 100 Meters, then taking a 2 -4 minute recovery period, then doing it again 4X.

#4:  It’s challenging!  I remember a time when going to the gym to workout was boring.  With HIIT workouts, there is never a dull moment!  You can do a HIIT workout with dumbbells, or you can do a series of plyometric (jumping type) exercises.  Or you can do different sprint workouts on a track.  Or you can purchase a program like INSANITY that incorporates HIIT concepts.

An Example HIIT Workout

All HIIT workouts typically consist of 3 things:  Warm-up, the HIIT, and cool-down.  It’s that simple.

I train and compete in Master’s Track which is part of USA Track & Field.  What’s fun to me about it is that it’s really just structured HIIT workouts with goals and camaraderie all wrapped up into one.

For example, I train for the 200 meters & 400 meters.  After warm-up (jogging, stretching & mobility drills), a typical workout in March would be 3 sets of 3X 200 Meters.  We would take 2 minutes recovery between each 200, and 6 minutes recovery in between sets.  We would set a goal of what to run each 200 Meters in…for example below 32 seconds (most of us are between 50 – 58 years old - LOL!).

We workout 2 – 3 times per week.  And believe me, not only do you feel the workout all day, but you welcome the typical 2 day recovery period!

If you want to find out more, I encourage you to Google HIIT.  But I also want to encourage you to get involved in some type of club or organization that does HIIT workouts on a routine basis.  Who knows, it may be so enjoyable, you'll completely forget about losing weight just from enjoying the camaraderie, goals, and accountability.  Then you'll realize that you’ve lost more weight in a shorter time than you could have imagined!