What you need to know about HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Oct. 3, 2018 - PRLog -- HIIT is the hottest workout worldwide according to the American College of Sports Medicine. No wonder. Research shows HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) produces superior results to all other forms of exercise and people see and feel results in just a few weeks. They see results -- if they are doing HIIT correctly.
The problem is most are not. What many people are doing today and calling it HIIT doesn't come close to the productive level of HIIT in the research.
Just because an exercise program is hard, this doesn't make it HIIT. To know if you are doing sprint cardio and the productive version of HIIT, which is clearly shown to get superior results in the shortest time, it's necessary to understand a little science behind the real version of HIIT.
The exercise has to be all-out, hard and fast. Working hard and moving slow isn't HIIT. The reason why is simple. Slow movement, even though it's hard, doesn't recruit all three muscle fiber types -- Slow, Fast and Super-Fast muscle fiber– to propel the movement during an exercise. You have to recruit a lot more muscle fiber than just the slow fiber so your heart muscle has to work very hard attempting to oxygenate a lot more muscle fiber to qualify as sprint cardio and HIIT.
Whether I'm working with a Ricardo Lockette or a Julian Edelman, who have several Super Bowl rings, or Mac McClenny, my 97-year-old stepdad who, by the way, needs to work all three muscle fiber types and both processes of his heart muscle. The human body always sends slow-muscle fiber to accomplish the task (or exercise) first.
When the brain senses that your slow fiber, approximately half your muscle fiber, isn't adequate to accomplish the task, the brain very quickly recruits the first layer of fast fiber (type IIa) that moves five times faster than the slow. This extra fiber jumps in to assist the movement when it's called on. However, when the brain senses that this first layer of fast fiber is inadequate to accomplish the task of an all-out cardio sprint, the brain very quickly recruits the super-fast fiber (type IIX) that moves ten times faster than the slow.
You are now recruiting all three muscle fiber types to propel the exercise. This takes focus to accomplish because your brain thinks it's doing you a favor NOT to recruit fast fiber so it can do things all day with slow fiber in the endurance energy system. Your brain is actually trying to conserve your fast-muscle fiber from being used in case you need it later for an emergency situation.
When you are going as fast and hard as you can during a cardio exercise, and it's so hard you can't possibly last longer than 30 seconds, this is sprint-intensity cardio. This is the true level of HIIT intensity that gets superior results.
HIIT can be performed sprint running, sprint swimming, or with an all-out cardio sprint effort on most pieces of cardio equipment. There has to be an all-out, high-velocity movement along with being hard (via resistance) to be sprint cardio and true HIIT because all three muscle fiber types have to be recruited where the heart muscle works so hard that you can't possibly go longer than 30 seconds.
Sprint 8 running is 8 reps X 60 meters (or 70 yards on a football field). Sprint 8 swimming is sprint swimming 25 meters all-out UNLESS you are a trained swimmer with great technique. For the trained swimmer with efficient technique, you have to make the flip and sprint swim 50 meters to equal the same intensity of most swimmers with 25 meters. Whatever form of cardio sprinting you use, you have to be totally spent in 30 seconds or less, or don't count the rep.
The second way to know if your HIIT is the real deal is in the amount of recovery in between the 8 cardio sprint reps. Active recovery is moving at the pace of a casual walk and it is a full 90 seconds.
With the exception of very specific training for athletes, if you rush the 90-second recovery and make it less, you just made the workout moderate intensity exercise. The reason why is simple. Your fast fiber isn't recovered and you won't be able to go all-out of the following cardio sprint. You may do the first couple of cardio sprints correctly, but if you rush the recovery, it's not giving you the intensity needed to be sprint cardio. You need all three fiber types recovered so you can go all-out on all 8 cardio sprint reps. If you can still go all-out on the coming cardio sprint with less than a 90-second active recovery, this means you unintentionally paced on the previous rep and didn't recruit all three muscle fiber types to propel the movement.
This is sprint cardio. This is real HIIT. This is working all three muscle fiber types and both processes of the heart muscle. This is by far the most productive form of exercise. But you have to ease into a sprint cardio program because it's classified as anaerobic exercise. It's the most productive form of exercise, but also the most dangerous. It's important to progressively ease into the program. And it's always a good idea to get your physician's clearance before doing any type of exercise program.
More more info: http://www.sprint8book.com/truth_about_HIIT.html
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Truth about HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training)
October 03, 2018 at 16:54 PM EDT
