So this is something I fell victim to for a long time, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I did HIIT all the time: before weight training, between exercises, rest days, ends of workout. I did it all, little did I know I was doing more harm than good and before I knew it I stopped it all together. Don’t worry I won’t be telling you never to do HIIT workouts again before you close this page. My hope is to educate you better on the actual benefits and where you may have been mislead.
HIIT, you spend a period of time (usually 10-30seconds) putting your all into an exercise. After that time period you then spend some time resting or at a lower pace, you repeat this in a number of intervals. The comparison often associated with HIIT is LISS (Low Intensity Steady State), this is where you take an exercise like walking and complete it at a steady pace for certain period of time.
People will tell you the benefits of doing HIIT compared to LISS are the effects of burning calories after the session. Basically because of the high oxygen requirements of HIIT when you’re finished the body is still working hard and burning calories to recover. This is true however this is not a massive contribution to your overall calories burned during the day. If you compare a 30min HIIT session to a 30min steady state session the difference in calories burned isn’t massive. Remember with HIIT you have high intensity and low intensity which will even itself out. Furthermore HIIT is also harder to recover from, which can be an important factor if you’re doing weight training. If you’re weight training anyway you’re already getting a lot of benefits that HIIT has to offer, so HIIT becomes redundant. And finally HIIT can also have a higher risk of injury due to a lot of them being high impact exercises. This can be easily solved by swapping exercises out for more ‘friendlier’ exercises such as the bike, elliptical trainer, skipping etc.
However the time efficiency and effectiveness is a real bonus over LISS, to get all your hard work done in a less amount of time should not be overlooked. Yes the afterburner effect and other areas are not as large as some people have you believe BUT it is still an increase over LISS (if you were to spend the same amount of time doing the activity and worked hard for HIIT).
My annoyance with HIIT Influencers
DISCLAIMER, this is not everyone. People put really informative and useful HIIT workouts out there for people who have no equipment who need to do something. Educating them and showing them a beneficial HIIT workout. However I have a few bugbears.
Many people do HIIT because they want to burn fat, I think we can all agree on. HIIT more often than not is cardio, and cardio is not the first thing we should do when it comes to losing fat. Our diet is the first thing we need to look at and creating a calorie deficit. Cardio is a tool to help but no where near as effective as a good diet with good nutrition. So people telling you all you need to do it this 10min no equipment bodyweight HIIT workout to lose fat, can get lost. Second point. Go outside for a walk and set a step goal, this is so much more effective than a quick HIIT session (see reasons above when comparing HIIT & LISS). If you can simply move more, be more active and hit that step goal whilst being in a calorie deficit. You know what, you don’t have to jump around the room like a mad man.
This point is where HIIT gets a bit blurred, because you could look at weight training as HIIT. You do weighted squats for a certain period of time and then rest, after that you repeat that interval. However normally the HIIT sessions on YouTube and Instagram will not build muscle. To build muscle you need to have a high protein diet and progressive overload. HITT with your bodyweight creates little resistance so you’re not going to create any progressive overload. You need equipment full stop. Additionally it’s very hard to hit every muscle with just your bodyweight especially upper body, the only really have available is the push up.
How many times out there do you all perform the same HIIT workout week in week out? I will concede some people do enjoy it, I even perform HIIT after my training sometimes (for reasons I’ll explain at the end of this blog). However for the majority, ask yourself honestly do you enjoy it? You see another HIIT workout and try that, then see another and try that. You don’t create any consistency so you have no foundation to compare your workouts or progress. You get bored, why? Well there’s no progression, we need something to work towards and quantify our progress.
James Smith PT
‘What get’s measured gets improved’
The reason why HIIT is so popular is because it’s the easiest thing for people to do, you need no equipment, you can do it at home and people advertise it as only taking 10 minutes. Do all this and you will look like this. Doesn’t work like that I’m afraid, the majority of these HIIT workouts you see on Instagram are by people who are trying to increase their following rather than helping you out. Half the time the exercises they’re showing for a workout aren’t actually working that muscle or their form is all wrong. Planks, mountain climbers, burpees these are all exercises put together for engagement because they’re seen as the holy trinity of home workouts.
Conclusion & Recommendations
People are working out at home more and more and we need to be helping those people get the most out of their workouts. What we should be encouraging is resistance training at home not HIIT sessions. Resistance training burns calories, fat and builds muscle. Just a set of resistance bands can give your workouts so much variety and make sure you hit nearly every muscle. It doesn’t cost a fortune, think mine cost about £15 from Amazon.
You know how to burn fat, yes cardio can be a tool but it doesn’t have to be HIIT. It doesn’t have to be a high impact energy session at all. Remember we don’t need to be working out everyday, your body needs rest and recovery and HIIT can compromise that.
I mentioned in this blog I’d explain the HIIT I do, at the end of my workouts I spend 5/10 mins skipping. I do this, to improve my cardio as I enjoy playing football so I need to keep my cardiovascular health up. I also really enjoy skipping (points talked about in a previous blog post), incorporating that into a 45/15 second HIIT works for me. Skipping is a low impact exercise so I’m protecting my joints and has other benefits. Finally I do it at the very end to not impact my weight training, as that’s my main focus and the most beneficial to my overall health.
If you follow HIIT training because you don’t know what to do, then ask someone. When you learn to drive you get someone who knows what they’re doing to help so you can learn and understand for yourself. So do the same, learn which exercises work certain muscles and why doing somethings might not be the best method. I’m always happy to help people who have any questions.
So now you know, HIIT why it works and why it doesn’t, hopefully you learned something.
Enjoy the rest of your day
Cameron
Additional Resources
Jeff Nipard: HIIT OR LISS: Which Is Better For FAT LOSS? (What The Science Says)
James Smith: F*CK HOME WORKOUTS!