Want to burn more body fat, improve your glucose and insulin response (and potentially prevent Type 2 Diabetes), increase your metabolic rate, and get these results by SPENDING LESS TIME WORKING OUT?
Me, too!
So I looked into current trends like High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and similar programs and I am excited to share the good news with you:
You can work out for a shorter period of time (15-30 minutes using HIIT) and get better results than the old fashioned “steady state cardio” we used to suggest for weight loss (30-60 minutes on the treadmill for example).
Woo Hoo! Let’s celebrate!
The fact is, we’ve known for years that doing intervals of higher intensity work combined with lower intensity (or even rest intervals when the high intensity is super high) has been shown to help improve fitness and athletic performance. But what’s really exciting to me is the current research that shows an increase in metabolism, so that you can burn more fat and calories by doing these shorter, harder workouts. It’s not that HIIT workouts burn more calories during the workout, they actually increase EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), which means your metabolism is increased for a longer period of time after the workout, which means you burn more calories the rest of the day! (Some studies showed 24 hours of elevated metabolism) Yippeee!!!!
So, how do you do HIIT?
- You can walk, run, bike, or any other mode of aerobic exercise and start with 3-5 minutes warm-up where you gradually increase your pace and heart rate.
- After the warm-up, alternate intervals of high intensity exercise (8-10 on a scale of 1-10) with lower intensity (4-6 on a scale of 1-10)
- You can change the intervals as you go through your workout (and as you get more fit), but start with a 1:1 ratio. For example, 30 seconds of fast running then 30 seconds of easy walking.
- Eventually, you can try a 2:1 ratio. For example, 1 minute of fast running then 30 seconds of easy walking.
- Do this for 10-20 minutes and make sure slowly cool down for 3-5 minutes to gradually lower your heart rate.
The high intensity intervals should be tough, but be smart and safe to avoid pushing yourself too hard, too soon. The low intensity intervals should feel so easy that you could continue at that pace all day. If you are just starting a fitness program, wait until you’ve built up a base of fitness before you try the high intensity intervals. Oh yeah, the research also showed that doing HIIT workouts, you can exercise just 3 times per week and get similar results to doing steady state cardio 5 times per week.
So, incorporate HIIT workouts and get better results and more free time, too! We’ve been doing them in our FitBody BootCamps lately and people LOVE the “more results in less time”.
Get ready for our 8 week Tabata BootCamp Program which includes an interactive website, nutrition guidance and more, coming in March 2012.