AMAZING HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING (HIIT)

Written by Slawomir (“Swavak”) Gromadzki, MPH

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If you are healthy and want to burn fat and lose weight more effectively and faster you can also use the HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING (HIIT) which is recently becoming more and more popular and regarded as very effective. This type of exercise stimulate our body to keep on burning fat for a very long time after we stop exercising. During very intense workout we are not able to provide our body with sufficient amount of oxygen. As a result our body keeps on stimulating metabolism for many hours after the workout. Researchers maintain that HIIT results in excellent health benefits that include improved metabolism and fat burning, or increased insulin sensitivity that is more effective than the results of a conventional continuous exercise.

HIIT is a type of exercise which alternates periods of short intense anaerobic workouts with short rest intervals (less-intense recovery periods). There are many different types of HIIT. The whole workout should always start with few minutes of worming up followed by a short (1-4 minutes) very intense exercise such as jumping, running, walking upstairs or uphill, pushups, etc. interrupted with short periods of rest (medium intensity exercise) which should be two times shorter than intense exercise. HIIT must be always finished with a period of cool down exercise. The entire workout is supposed to last around 20 to 30 minutes, but even 10 15 minute effort would be very beneficial in case you cant or dont want to spend more time. The intensive periods of exercise should last at least 30 seconds up to 4 minutes.

It is recommended to start HIIT with moderate exercise such as fast walking, jogging, etc. and day after day increase its intensity. For instance, you can start with very fast walking for 1 minute alternated with 30 seconds of regular walking. After a week or so you may start alternating jogging and walking, and finally after a month you can try short sprints with fast walking, etc.

You can do HIIT at home too alternating 30-60 seconds of very intensive exercise with 15-30 seconds of moderate one. Specialists suggest that even if HIIT lasts only 4 minutes a day it will still be very beneficial. They also advise that because regular 20-30 minute HIIT workout is very intense, we should only do it not more than three to four times a week.

If you decide to give HIIT a try please read my article about EXERCISE >

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SOURCES

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