Turn up the intensity and your fitness with HIIT!

Having trouble finding a workout plan that fits your goals and lifestyle?

High-intensity interval training, or HIIT is a workout that involves short periods of extreme high-intensity exercises alternating with low-intensity recovery periods and might be the plan you’re looking for!

Here are some of the benefits of HIIT:

Many gyms and fitness centers offer short 30 minute or less group fitness classes that feature HIIT formats and enable you to effectively do more work in less time.
These short, high-intensity bouts of exercise require a tremendous amount of oxygen usage which helps to burn more calories. Furthermore, HIIT workouts increase exercise post oxygen consumption (EPOC), or the after-burn. After the intense work, the metabolism stays elevated and the body continues burning calories for hours after the workout as it gradually returns to its original rested state.
HIIT can improve oxygen consumption improving your muscles’ ability to use oxygen therefore improving muscle and cardio endurance allowing you to work longer and harder.
It can help you lose body fat and reduce waist circumference by reducing unhealthy visceral fat that increases risk of diseases. HIIT can also help reduce high blood pressure and blood sugar and improve insulin resistance.
Expensive gym equipment is not necessary to do HIIT. Bodyweight exercises like running in place, high knees, jump squats and mountain climbers will increase your heart rate fast and push you to your limits.

However, there are some disadvantages to HIIT training you should be aware of:

If you have been sedentary for a long time or are a beginner, your body probably isn’t prepared to do high-intensity, high-impact, plyometric movements.
HIIT programs have higher risk for injury if performed improperly.
If done too frequently it can cause overtraining or burnout. HIIT is recommended for 2 or 3 sessions a week with 48 hours to recover between workouts.
HIIT is great for your overall health but won’t really help if you want to gain muscle mass.

If you decide to pursue HIIT training, there are several ways you can structure your workouts. For example:

Tabata style where you work hard for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds (20:10) and repeat for 4 to 20 minutes.
Long work interval HIIT, where you work hard for 40 seconds and rest for 20 seconds. Since recovery time is shorter you are using a 2:1 work to rest ratio making this workout harder because your body will not be fully ready for next high-intense bout.
In a 1:1 work to rest ratio HIIT workout your work and rest or recovery sets are the same duration.

If you don’t want to spend a large portion of your time exercising, a high-intensity interval training program may be for you. You will get to feel and see great physical and health benefits but while only working out for 20 to 30 minutes 2 to 3 times a week. HIIT will improve your endurance and increase your metabolism helping with caloric expenditure, fat burn and weight loss. HIIT also helps improve or prevent high blood pressure, blood sugar, insulin resistance and heart health. This program can be done with or without equipment, anywhere and at any time, making it a very effective workout.

For more valuable advice on staying well throughout the pandemic, and to stay connected to others, we encourage you to join the QuadMed Well-being Facebook group or subscribe to the QuadMed YouTube channel, where you can find exercise videos and more to keep you active, healthy and engaged.