HIIT – The New Cardio

You probably hear a lot of people lately referring to HIIT. No? You haven’t? Are your TV and computer both broken? Well, maybe not. I have to admit that up to about a couple of years ago I had no idea what the heck it was. It stands for “High Intensity Interval Training”. This means you take regular Interval Training and jack up the intensity as much as you can. It’s now one of the ways I get my cardio dose, and I’m loathe to admit this too: I hate it. Well, I love it. Ok, I love to hate it.

 

Why do I hate it? Because it’s HARD!!

 

Why do I love it? Because it WORKS!!

 

I’ve never experienced such gains in strength and stamina as when I’m training regularly using High Intensity Interval Training. So, if my opinion means anything, I highly, (repeat: HIGHLY) recommend it.

 

One of the ways you can increase the intensity in your own Interval Training is to work as HARD AS YOU CAN during the ‘difficult’ interval STAGE and make sure your active recovery stage is not slacking (ie, you march with real purpose during the walking of a sprint/walk interval session, rather than ‘strolling’… heck, why don’t you do a light jog during your ‘recovery’ stage?). Make absolutely sure you are getting actual ‘recovery’ during this lower intensity stage so that you have enough energy to go hard on the next higher intensity interval. So if light jogging is not letting your heart rate come down far enough for you to recover enough, then move it down to a march. You MUST recover in order to crank out that next work interval. Got it? Good! Let’s move on.

 

One of the best ways I’ve been able to find to jack up the intensity is to do my sprints up a hill and march VERY quickly down. So for instance, I’ll run to the bottom of my favorite hill for about 10 minutes, then to get up the hill I give it everything I’ve got. At the top, I turn around and walk back down (no stopping to breathe or look around, just keep moving, moving, all the time moving), and at the bottom give it everything I’ve got to get to the top again. Trust me, every time you get to the top of the hill you just want to die or puke. Concentrate on getting your breathing even as you walk down the hill, and by the time you get there you’ll be ready to sprint again. I do this for 20 minutes then run home. This typically adds up to about 40 minutes of running, sprinting, jogging or walking. Yes, it certainly is a fabulous workout, and yes I certainly do hate every minute of it … but its a love kind of hate because it definitely does hurt but it definitely does do good things for me.

 

Come join me and have your own love/hate relationship with HIIT!

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