Burn More Calories with 4 Letters - HIIT

Ask anyone the worst part about cardio and chances are they will tell you it’s the time and boredom of staying on that same cardio machine doing the same movement for hours each week.Well there’s good news.You can burn more calories and have a greater impact on your fitness levels through doing High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.Now with HIIT, you’re going to be working harder (see ‘High Intensity’) but you can also spend less time doing your cardio and get the same or better results.The idea is that you begin your choice of cardio exercise, such as jogging for example.You begin at a regular pace while using a timer or watch.Next you then perform that exercise at the highest intensity level, which in this case would be sprinting, for a set period of time.After that interval, you then begin back at your regular pace, or jogging, for another interval.

This can be done for any cardio exercise that’s right for you, including on any cardio machine.  In fact, on most, you can set up a HIIT setting with just the click of a button.  Here is an example of a HIIT workout:

30 seconds jog > 30 Seconds Sprint.

Repeat 15 more times (16 Minutes Total)

So some of the benefits of HIIT include:

·         Less time in the gym or working out

• More effective at speeding up your metabolism

• Working for extensive periods of time can put you in a catabolic state in which you will start losing muscle mass when you don’t feed your muscles.  The result is that you could lose some of the muscle you’ve worked so hard to gain.

• Work those ‘fast twitch’ muscle fibers that don’t get as much work

• Oh yeah…..you burn calories.

It’s important, like any workout, to make sure that you warm up properly and cool down properly.  HIIT training can be more fun, more effective and give you a little extra time to do what you want during the day.