High-intensity interval training, or HIIT, has become popular in recent years and – unlike some fitness fads – there’s a lot of evidence to support its effectiveness as a training system. One of the benefits that you don’t need a degree in exercise science to understand is that HIIT workouts tend to be short. Most of the sessions over the folowing pages come in at around 20 minutes.
For most people, a short HIIT workout is a far more attractive option than spending an hour in the gym or pounding the pavements endlessly. In fact, in a recent study published in the journal Topics in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation, researchers found that when they asked subjects to list their barriers to exercise, “lack of time” was the most common response. Similarly, if motivation is a problem, HIIT could be the answer because the intense, dynamic and challenging nature of the workouts mean that they are always engaging – you’ll get tired, for sure, but you won’t be bored.
Some solid scientific data backs up the idea of using HIIT for fat loss. One study, published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, compared conventional gym training with HIIT training and found that “HIIT resulted in significantly greater reduction in both abdominal girth and visceral adiposity compared with conventional training”. The same study also found that HIIT had a positive impact on total body fat, hand grip strength, sprint endurance, jumping ability and flexibility.
There are other benefits you get from doing a HIIT workout that involves resistance training as opposed to just cardiovascular activity, such as running or cycling. Pure cardio activity is useful, but it shouldn’t be the only kind of training you do because lifting weights will improve your strength and also your body composition (improving your ratio of muscle to body fat). Do that and you’ll usher in a host of other health benefits, such as increased life expectancy and reduced risk of heart disease.
Of course, just as one type of training won’t give you everything you’re looking for; HIIT shouldn’t be used in isolation. However, combine it with other forms of training, including some longer, steadier sessions that build your aerobic base (see page 38), and you’ll begin
