HIIT it Hard
How to Melt Fat and Optimize Performance With HIIT
Workouts
Think working out has to be hard? Think again! HIIT workouts appear to
do the impossible by helping you to burn more calories than a 40-minute run in
a quarter of that time! Better yet, they also build muscle, improve athletic
performance and give you more energy. They’ve been transforming the lives of
people all around the world and if you want to achieve one of those ‘cover
model physiques’ then this is probably just what you’re looking for.
Ready to get started with the most highly
effective and efficient workouts on the planet? Then let’s get started! Along
the way, we’ll discover that there’s a lot more to HIIT than just the basic
alternating speeds; we’ll learn some advanced techniques like cardio
acceleration, fartlek training, speed drills, concurrent training, metcon,
tabata, finishers and more.
Let’s HIIT it!
Contents
Chapter 1: Cardio
Training, Then and Now.................................................................................... 3
More
Benefits of HIIT............................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 2: The
Science of HIIT, Understanding Your Body So You Can Get More Out of It............... 6
The Three
Energy Systems....................................................................................................... 6
How We Progress
Through Energy Systems.............................................................................. 8
Chapter 3: How to
Start HIIT Training With Running....................................................................... 9
How to Build
Up a Basic Level of Fitness.................................................................................. 10
A Gentle
Introduction to HIIT.................................................................................................. 10
Chapter 4: Tips for
Better HIIT Results......................................................................................... 12
Should You
Use Machines?..................................................................................................... 12
Incorporating
Fasted Cardio................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 5:
Concurrent Training and Using Kettlebells.................................................................. 14
Concurrent
Training (Resistance Cardio).................................................................................. 15
Introducing
the Kettlebell Swing.......................................................................................... 15
Chapter 6: Advanced
HIIT Protocols – Tabata, MetCon and Cardio Acceleration........................... 17
Tabata.................................................................................................................................... 17
Cardio
Acceleration................................................................................................................ 18
Fartlek................................................................................................................................... 19
MetCon................................................................................................................................. 20
Chapter 7: Creating
Whole-Body Circuit Routines........................................................................ 21
How to
Design the Perfect Circuit Routine............................................................................... 21
Building Muscle With Circuits.................................................................................................. 22
Last Works: How to Add HIIT to a Healthy Lifestyle 23
Chapter 1: Cardio
Training, Then and Now
If you want to build muscle, then you need to
cause muscle damage and metabolic stress. By lifting weights, you can cause a
build-up of damage and this will provide precisely the stimulation you need to trigger
muscle growth during rest.
To lose fat, improve your fitness and get
better health though, you need to use cardiovascular training.
Cardiovascular training is any type of
training that involves exerting yourself for an extended period of time. Very
often this will mean running long distances, with jogging being perhaps the
most popular form of cardio training. Not far behind though are swimming,
cycling, skipping, rowing and others.
Traditionally, this kind of cardiovascular
training has been ‘steady state’. That means that you put on your running
shoes, you step out of the door and you run for about 40-60 minutes.
It’s steady state because you are maintaining a steady level of exertion
throughout the course of the exercise. In this case you are jogging at a set
pace and then maintaining that pace.
For a long time, this was thought to be the
very best way to burn the maximum number of calories and to improve fitness –
and there was good theory behind why this should be the case. Specifically, it
was thought that there was an optimal ‘fat burning zone’ and that this could be
found at roughly 70% of your maximum heartrate.
This makes sense in theory, seeing as faster
than 70% of your MHR would put you past your ‘anaerobic threshold’. In other
words, you would be running so fast, that you wouldn’t be able to
rely on your aerobic energy system for fuel: you simply couldn’t burn
fat quickly enough and so you would be forced to rely on energy stored in your
muscles as ATP and glycogen.
It would appear to make sense then, that
running at 70% of your MHR and maintaining the maximum pace at which the body
burns fat, should result in the maximum weight loss.
But this isn’t what modern research has found.
HIIT stands for ‘High Intensity Interval
Training’ and it completely turns this concept on its head. In HIIT you
actually alternate between bursts of intense exertion (such as sprinting) and
periods of relative low intensity exercise (like jogging or power walking).
This way, you are switching from your anaerobic energy system to your aerobic
system and back; switching between burning energy stored in your blood and
muscles and energy stored as fat.
But what makes this so effective is what
happens after the anaerobic training. When you exert yourself maximally
by sprinting or exercising otherwise at 100%, you deplete any energy that might
have been available from sources other than fat. This then means that following
that, your body can only burn fat for energy–there is no other option
remaining.
Thus, the you will then burn even more fat
during the aerobic portions of the exercise. And when you finish and go home,
you will continue to burn fat stores because you’ll still be low on stored
glycogen. This is what some people refer to as the ‘after burn effect’ and it
means that after an intensive session of HIIT, you can continue to burn more
calories for the entire remainder of the day!
Introduction
More Benefits of HIIT
HIIT is able to burn more calories than steady
state cardio then and because you’re exerting yourself more at certain points
throughout your training, this means you should also see be finished in a much
shorter space of time.
Typically, a HIIT session can last between
10-20 minutes and be just as effective in terms of calories burned as a
40-minute run. For those who have a busy and hectic work schedule then, HIIT
training is the ideal solution and allow them to squeeze in a few short minutes
of highly effective training to get amazing results!
There are more reasons to get excited about HIIT too.
When looking at any type of training program,
what’s always useful to keep in mind is the SAID principle. This means
‘Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands’ – it means that your body changes to
adapt to the demands placed on it. If you train at altitude, you become better
at training at altitude. If you jog, you become better at jogging.
Thus, HIIT makes you better at high intensity
activities – which include sprinting, running, rowing, boxing, wrestling, play
fighting, sports, moving furniture and more. These are things we are much more
likely to utilize in our daily lives and that makes this a more adaptive and
useful form of training. Whereas steady state cardio makes you more effective
at ‘long slogs’, HIIT makes you explosive and athletic.
And this also creates a number of other great
advantages too. For instance, HIIT has been shown to help improve the
efficiency and number of mitochondria. Mitochondria are tiny ‘energy factories’
that live inside all of our cells and have the critical role of creating and
utilizing ATP (adenosine triphosphate). This is the most fundamental form of
energy in the human body and it’s what fuels all our movements as well as all
our thoughts. More mitochondria means greater energy efficiency.
That means yet more athletic performance and
even more brain power. Your brain cells have mitochondria too!
Ever wondered why little kids seem to run in
circles all day without getting tired while older generations get exhausted
from getting up to turn the TV on? One of the big reasons for this discrepancy
is the difference in the number and efficiency of mitochondria.
This also improves your ‘VO2 max’, which is
the amount of oxygen you are capable of using. The greater your VO2 max, the
more efficient you become at oxygenating your body. This is one of the biggest
indicators of physical fitness and one of the things that athletes are
encouraged to focus on in their training.
But perhaps best of all is that the kind of
explosive movement used in HIIT will invariably engage your ‘fast twitch muscle
fiber’. These are the muscle fibers that contain more mitochondria and that are
responsible for delivering rapid power. They’re also the biggest type of muscle
fibers and the ones that will make you look like a bodybuilder.
If you engage in steady state cardio, then you
can risk converting your fast twitch muscle fiber into slow twitch fiber. Why?
Because you are placing high energy demands on your body over a long duration –
and thus your body will want to move the ratio toward the most efficient form
of muscle fiber. What’s more, is that you create a highly catabolic environment
that in short starves your body of fuel and forces it to break down both fat and
muscle.
This is why most long-distance runners also happen to be stick thin.
But when you engage your fast twitch muscle fibers, you show your body
that you need explosiveness and you shorten the length of the catabolic period.
This in turn means that you don’t risk breaking down muscle tissue in the same
way, allowing you to create a physique that is hard, ripped and powerful. Women
can expect toned definition, while men can expect rippling vascularity and
striations.
That’s why, as we stated earlier, this is the
preferred weight loss strategy of cover models and celebrities.
So let’s recap: this is a form of training that is:
·
Quicker than conventional steady state cardio
·
Able to burn a much greater number of calories
in a shorter time
·
Able to create an ‘afterburn effect’ for increased
metabolism throughout the day
·
Effective in increasing energy levels by
improving the number of mitochondria
·
Effective in protecting muscle against
deterioration for a leaner, harder physique
·
Excellent for your all-round health
Oh and did we mention that it’s also highly versatile and practical
and can be performed anywhere?
Yep, that’s pretty much why people love HIIT. Let’s introduce it into
your routine, shall we?
Just before we do that though, let’s take a
closer look at the science. Boring I know – but it will be crucial in helping
you to really understand what you’re doing, rather than just following a
routine blindly!
Chapter 2: The Science of HIIT, Understanding Your Body So You Can Get More Out of It
Lt’s first consider how the body gets energy and manages that energy
during exertion.
First, in order to exercise, the body needs energy. This energy comes
from a source known as ATP or Adenosine Triphosphate which is described in
scientific circles as the ‘energy currency of life’. This substance is a
nucleotide made up of three phosphagen molecules, bonded together by a powerful
force. That’s what the name literally means tri- meaning three, phosphate –
meaning phosphagen.
All types of energy in the body are ultimately
converted into ATP, so when you eat a big cake, the sugar and glucose will
ultimately need to be converted into this molecule before it can be of any use
to your muscles or your cells. In real terms, any one ‘mole’ of ATP energy will
provide 7.3 calories. It would take just over 190 micromoles to move your index
finger enough to click a mouse button on a computer and this would equate to
around 1.42 calories!
The power in this substance however doesn’t come from the phosphagen itself, but from the powerful bonds that bind it together, and it’s when these bonds break that they unleash the energy that the body can utilise. An athlete needs to be able to supply their muscles with a lot of ATP then in order to perform the necessary movements for running or weightlifting – and there are three ways in which they can do this.
More Benefits of HIIT
The Three Energy Systems
The first way the body gets ATP is through the
phosphagen system, also known as the ATP-CP system, which uses the ATP stored
in the muscles to supply that energy. The body can store enough ATP at any one
time to allow for around 3 seconds of full powered exertion (a little more or a
little less depending on your physical fitness and various other factors), at
which point it will need to look elsewhere.
Fortunately breaking the ATP molecules results in some useful bi
products – ADP (andenosinediphosphate) and AMP (andenosine monophosphate) with
two and one bonded phosphagen molecules respectively. So if you imagine you
have three bonded molecules and they break you will understandably be left with
a one and a two, or three single molecules. It’s basic maths… The good news is
that using a substance called creatine phosphate (hence the CP!) can then
recombine these molecules to make them back into ATP ready to be broken once
more for extra energy. The body can store enough creatine for roughly 8-10
seconds of continued exertion, meaning that in total the body can use the
phosphagen system for around 13 seconds maximum of continued exertion.That is
enough to sprint just over 100 metres. It is thought however that through the
use of creatine supplements that this maximum time can be increased marginally.
At this point if exertion continues the body
needs to get its ATP from somewhere else and this is when it looks to its
stored carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. This represents the shift to what
is known as the ‘glycogen lactic acid system’.
This system is a slightly slower and less efficient means of supplying
energy, which requires the body to split the glycogen first into glucose and
then again into ATP. This unfortunately creates a number of unwanted
by-products called metabolites including lactic acid (from which the substance
takes its name).This metabolic build-up creates the uncomfortable, mildly
painful ‘burning’ sensation we get in our muscles when we push ourselves in the
gym. The body can sustain itself using the glycogen lactic acid system for a
further one minute and thirty seconds until this build up becomes too much to
tolerate. If we continue to try and push ourselves at MHR past this point, it
can lead to nausea and even fainting.
It was long believed that lactic acid was
actually responsible for this failure and for the burning sensation. However,
more recent research has shown us that lactate is not harmful in itself but
rather seems to correlate with other factors that fatigue the glycogen lactic
acid system. Thus high level athletes can still monitor their build-up of
lactate in the blood in order to calculate a ‘lactate inflection point’. With
training, it is possible to improve tolerance to metabolites and thus sustain
maximum exertion for longer.
Guess what you can use to improve this aspect of your fitness? HIIT!
Both these systems are anaerobic, meaning that
for the first one minute and forty-three seconds the body won’t be using oxygen
or burning fat.
In order to lose weight then the training must
continue past this point and force the body to find its energy elsewhere. This
is where the aerobic system comes in, relying on the oxidisation of foodstuffs
in our mitochondria. In other words, the body looks to our supplies of glycogen
(and so ATP) stored in our cells as fat and then uses the oxygen in our blood
to break them down and carry them to our muscles. This is then what leads to
fat being burned directly. This forces us to breathe more heavily in order to
supply the necessary amount of oxygen and it increase our heartrate further to
transport the oxygen to the fat stores and then to bring the energy to our
muscles and brain.
The aerobic energy system can actually be used indefinitely and will continue until you completely exhaust all supplies of energy located around the body. During a typical prolonged endurance test, you will find you also breakdown protein for energy and even muscle. This in contrast to high intensity exercises that will use 100% carbohydrates for fuel, purely because they provide the quickest and most accessible source of ATP.
How We Progress Through Energy Systems
So if you head outside and start jogging,
you’ll notice that at first, you don’t need to gasp for breath in order to
maintain your speed and your heartrate doesn’t immediately go crazy. That’s
because you are using your ATP-CP system.
If you continue this exertion though, you will
switch to your glycogen lactic acid system. This will use up energy stored as
glycogen in the muscles. This will lead to an increase in lactate and
metabolites in the muscles and the blood stream, leading to nausea, muscle
pain, cramping and more. It’s at this point that things become uncomfortable.
If you are running fast, you will continue to use this system until
you eventually pass out – this is your ‘lactate threshold’ or your ‘lactate
inflection point’. This is the point at which the build-up of lactate and
metabolites becomes too great for you to maintain that level of exercise. This
will happen before you have completely exhausted the stored glycogen in the
muscles.
But most of us will instead find we are forced
to slow down before we reach our inflection point and switch to the aerobic
system. We’ll drop to sub-maximal exertion triggered by the physical symptoms
and will find a steady pace at around 70% of our maximum heartrate. This will
mean we have time to burn fat for fuel, which will require heavy breathing and
a high heartrate but which won’t lead to the same levels of discomfort.
If you were training with steady state cardio,
you would continue this level of exertion indefinitely and stop after you’d
burned a satisfactory number of calories. Following this, your body would then
continue to use a combination of all three systems for tasks throughout the
remainder of the day. Low blood sugar however would trigger a release of the
hunger hormone ghrelin and this would be accompanied by cortisol (the stress
hormone). This is why we’re always stressed when we’re hungry! This would also
correlate with an increase in myostatin – an unpopular molecule that leads to an
increased breakdown of muscle. This is on top of the increased protein
breakdown during the exercise itself.
But if you utilize HIIT, you will use the
aerobic system for a set period of time giving your body enough time to clear
the lactate build-up in your bloodstream and then you would switch back
to maximum exertion to further deplete the glucose stores. This would mean you
were taking a small break from burning fat and blood sugar thus reducing the
negative impact on your mood and muscle mass.Moreover, it would mean you could
almost entirely empty your glycogen stores and thereby force your body to use
blood sugar and fat stores for even the simplest movements for a long period
afterward while it creates more glycogen!
Chapter 3: How to Start
HIIT Training With Running
So now you know the science, it’s time to start putting that theory
into practice!
The great news is that HIIT training really is just as easy as
it sounds and simply involves alternating between periods of high exertion and
relatively low intensity exercise. There are a few caveats however and it is
important to approach this in a sensible and structured way in order to avoid
injury or disappointment.
Most people will begin their HIIT with running
as this is a very straightforward form of cardio training that doesn’t require
access to any specialist tools and that anyone can understand and use.
There are countless HIIT protocols however and these vary in length
and intensity. The key thing to recognize here is that high intensity training
of any kind can be highly dangerous if you have never done it before, if
you’re very overweight or if you’re in very poor physical health. It’s also dangerous
if you have any pre-existing heart conditions.
In short, you need basic heart strength before
you start pushing it to 100%. Thus, it is a good idea to build up at least a
basic level of fitness before you start your HIIT training. If you’re still
gasping for breath whenever you ascend the stairs, then you’re not ready for
HIIT.
But here’s the thing: even if you’re used to
exercising regularly and you’re in good shape, switching to HIIT will still
come as a very big shock if you’ve not used it before. This is a whole new ball
game in terms of the demands it places on your body and you’ll be surprised at
how quickly you end up in a gasping heap on the floor!
If you’ve never exercised before, then read the next section. If you’ve not used HIIT before but you’re generally in good shape, then you can skip to the one after it.
How to start HIIT training with running
How to Build Up a Basic Level of Fitness
Note: Before beginning an
intensive training routine, it isalwaysa good idea to consult with your
GPand to ensure that you don’t have any underlying heart conditions!
Before you start pushing yourself to your
cardiovascular limit, it’s a good idea to first build up that basic level of
fitness that will prevent you from shocking your heart too much. Right now, you
might be thinking that you don’t need to worry about this and that it’s not
likely you’re going to suffer heart problems. Even if you’re not worried
though, building this basic level of fitness is important for your ability to
stick with an intense HIIT workout.
This is the mistake that too many people make – they launch straight
into their training and hope that they’ll be able to keep up a pace that is far
above what they find ‘comfortable’. The belief is that you need to be pushing
beyond your comfort levels in order to lose weight.
But what actually happens is that you end up
hating exercise and dreading your workouts. The result is that you’ll find
yourself putting it off and unable to take part unless you’re feeling your very
best. In no time at all, your training falls by the wayside and you give up!
So don’t aim to start losing weight or
transform your fitness right away. Rather, focus on gradually improving your
fitness so that your workouts are never outside the realms of comfortable to
begin with. You’ll find that as you do this, you learn to do more and
eventually this allows you to take on more challenging workouts and actually
stick with them.
So how do you build up this basic fitness?
The answer is actually to start with steady
state cardio, using a gentle pace to begin with and then build up. Begin with
running but don’t aim to run a long distance or to run quickly to begin with.
Instead, just aim to enjoy running. Set out with comfortable running
shoes and jog carefully and slowly for half an hour. When it becomes painful,
go home.
Do this once a week and over time, you’ll find
that you start running faster and further without even trying. Importantly
though, you won’t risk exhausting your body, you won’t damage your knees,
overtraining or learning to loathe your training.
This can be very frustrating at first if you were hoping to get into
great shape right away! But what’s very important here is to be disciplined
with yourself. A lot of people think that getting into great shape is all about
being disciplined enough to keep training. Just as important though is
to be disciplined enough to be patient and to build that basic level of
strength before you approach the more intense types of training.
Build up your strength and stamina slowly and then
you can look at adding HIIT workouts. And again, you’re going to start gently…
A Gentle Introduction to
HIIT
A lot of people will read the words ‘HIIT’ and
assume that this is one type of workout. In reality though, HIIT is a very
broad and flexible term that can encompass a great many different types of
training and a great many different protocols.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make then,
is to start HIIT and dive in right at the deep end with an intensive program
aimed at the incredible fit. One of the most popular choices for instance is
‘Tababta’. This is a brutal, punishing, fast and highly effective method of
training that will leave you
gasping for air and covered in sweat in just 4
minutes. But it’s also far too intense to start with and especially when
running.
So instead, let’s begin with a very easy beginner routine:
Jog for 2 minutes
Sprint for 10 seconds
Repeat this five times. It sounds very easy
but you’ll quickly find that just 10 seconds of sprinting is more than enough
to completely exhaust you. By the time you’re finished, you’ll be completely
exhausted and you’ll feel as though you can’t perform another 2 minute jogging
session.
Finish this with a 10 minute cool down.
The entire workout will take you 12 minutes
but you’ll find you’re easily as tired (if not more tired) than you would have
been after jogging at a steady state for 30-40 minutes! Moreover, this is
enough to trigger the after burn effect and to leave you burning calories for
hours afterward.
Because this type of training is so fast, you
can afford to do this 2 or 3 times a week. Once you start to become more
confident, you can then move on to the next step up:
Jog for 2 minutes
Sprint for 30 seconds
You can also increase the number of laps to 8 and then ten.
Eventually, you might be able to work all the way up to:
Jog for 1 minute
Sprint for 30 seconds
Or
Jog for 1 minute
Sprint for 1 minute
Again though, you should only move on to these
harder difficulty levels once you have built up the basic fitness and heart
strength to be able to cope relatively easily. You should be exhausted at the
end but not to the point where you can’t do anything for the rest of the day,
or where you’re unable to train again for days and days on end.
Chapter 4: Tips for
Better HIIT Results
When performing the sprints, remember that it
doesn’t actually matter how fast you are going as long as you are maxing out
your potential. In other words, there’s a good chance that you are going to
find yourself slowing down somewhat as you reach the later stages of your
routine and you shouldn’t worry if that happens.
Wearing a fitness tracker or running watch can
help you with this. Something like the Garmin Vivoactive will provide the best
of both worlds here by acting as a fitness tracker throughout the day
(measuring your heartrate and your steps etc.) but acting as a running watch
during training and letting you monitor your route and your metrics.
Your maximum heartrate is something you can calculate quite easily.
Simply go for a sprint or engage in other activity with maximum effort. Monitor
your heartrate and you should find that it never goes beyond a certain point.
This point is your max heartrate and it’s what you should be aiming to hit
whenever you perform the high intensity portions of these workouts. The speed
is less important.
And of course you can also use this to work
out 70% of your MHR, which should be your fat burning zone.
Should You Use Machines?
While HIIT itself is fairly simple to grasp, there are actually a lot
of different factors to consider.
For example, you need to decide whether to use
exercise machines or to avoid them and train outside instead. If you’re going
to use HIIT for running for instance, should you use a treadmill or should you
head outside and jog and sprint?
The answer is that it’s up to you (of course)
and both have their advantages. What’s key is to recognize the different
benefits of each and therefore to be able to make the best decision for you.
A lot of people will look down on exercise
machines. There are indeed a number of problems with these: for starters, they
prevent you from getting outside which in itself has a huge number of different
health benefits. At the same time though, you’ll also find that running outside
has the advantage of training your legs harder and actually uses significantly
different biomechanics.
That’s because running on a pavement or grass
will require pulling force generated in your legs as you have to pull your body
along the ground. Conversely, when you run on a treadmill, you will only need
to lift your legs off the ground as the treadmill moves underneath you. As
such, there is actually less effort involved in running on a treadmill.
Running outside is also a lot more varied.
While it’s possible to alter the angle and the pace on a treadmill, it’s still
going to involve selecting from one of a number of different positions and
sticking with it. When you run outside meanwhile, you are forced to constantly
adapt to changes in the shape of the ground, to the gradient you are running on
and more.
Of course many of these issues are less
significant if you are riding a stationary bike but the variety and the real
world ‘value’ of running is one of the things that attracts a lot of people to
it in the first place.
But this doesn’t mean there is no place at all for running on a
treadmill. For starters, running on a treadmill is a good option if you have a
bad knee or another complaint. Running at a fixed incline is a good way to
reduce the strain on the knees and many people will thus prefer to stick to a
treadmill so that they can control this facet. Better yet for bad knees or back
complaints is to ride a stationary ‘recumbent bike’.
Bikes have zero impact, which makes them
better for those with joint complaints. A recumbent bike meanwhile is a type of
bike that has you leaning backward with your legs outstretched in front of you.
This in turn means that you aren’t placing any weight on your legs or your
spine and can simply concentrate on driving the pedals.
CV machines are also great for training when
you can’t be bothered to head outside because it’s raining or cold and if
you’re someone who will struggle to be motivated in this regard, then you
should consider that a very big bonus. It’s always better to
perform an easier form of exercise and stick with it, than it is to perform a
more challenging form but then give up after the first week!
Lastly, running on machines will give you the
ability to precisely control the level of challenge. That means that you
can monitor the exact speed you’re able to maintain and a very good estimate of
your calorie burn. Some will even include heartrate monitors or synchronise
with external gadgets to perform this job. All this is ideal for HIIT because
it means you can run for exactly 1 minute at a very precise speed and then
switch. Next week, you can do the exact same thing and once you’re used
to that you can increase the challenge by a very small and precise amount.
Incorporating Fasted
Cardio
Before we get into the different tools and
strategies you can use to mix up your HIIT training, note that there is
a way you can increase your calorie burn significantly simply by changing the
time of day that you train.
This technique is called ‘fasted cardio’ and
it involves training first thing in the morning before breakfast. This is
called ‘fasted’ cardio because your body is in a fasted state. While you
haven’t been consciously starving yourself, you will not have eaten for a while
merely as a result of having been asleep for so long.
This means that your body will be very low on
energy reserves as your glycogen stores and blood sugar are all but depleted.
You’ll have higher levels of cortisol as a result, which is why many of us are
cranky in the morning and it’s even one of the things that actually wake us up!
Cortisol is one of our ‘wakefulness’ neurotransmitters and works in direct
opposition to melatonin.
If you train at this point then, before
breakfast, you’ll be training at a massive calorie deficit and you’ll be forced
to burn more fat.
Unfortunately, this also means you’re more likely to burn muscle. This
is mitigated to some extent by performing HIIT rather than steady state cardio
and especially if you are using concurrent training (see below) but it’s worth
bearing in mind if your goal is to build lean muscle. If your goal is simply weight
loss though, then go for it! Just make sure to give yourself a few minutes
after getting up so your spine is less vulnerable to injury.
Chapter 5: Concurrent
Training and Using Kettlebells
As you begin using HIIT to build basic levels
of fitness and progress to improve your metabolism and performance, you can
then branch out to try more varied and challenging protocols. What’s more, is
that many of these types of training can help to provide very specific benefits
and help you to reach particular goals. If you know precisely what it is that
you’re trying to achieve with your training, then you might find that one of
these types of training is actually the most advantageous for you…
In this chapter, we’re going to be looking at adding an additional
layer of resistance into our training.
In the next chapter, we’ll learn how to mix up the timing in order to
alter the challenge.
Concurrent Training (Resistance Cardio)
One of the best ways to mix up your training is to change the type of
exercise that you’re using in your HIIT routines. This is something we’ll
discuss a lot more in the next chapters but the first thing to consider is
combining cardio and resistance training together in the form of ‘resistance
cardio’ – also called ‘concurrent training’.
Concurrent training is essentially a type of
cardio where your movements are challenged by some form of resistance. In
short, it’s like weightlifting combined with cardio. An obvious example
is to increase the resistance setting on a stationary bike, or to run on sand.
But actually, there are much better examples.
One is to perform pull ups quickly, or to perform press ups quickly. You can
also try punching a heavy bag (which requires muscle power in the shoulders in
particular), or you can try running while pushing or pulling something heavy
behind or in front of you.
This has a huge number of advantages, the principle one being that it
is even more protective against muscle deterioration. That is to say
that you can perform this kind of cardio and burn a lot of calories
without worrying that you’ll lose much muscle. This is because you’re engaging
even more of your fast twitch muscle fibers and you’re driving blood and
metabolites to your muscles where they will stimulate growth.
At the same time, that increase in growth hormone and testosterone
(triggered by the breakdown of muscle) will mean an improved level of fat
burning and muscle building. Anabolic hormones such as these don’t only
encourage the body to build muscle but also to burn fat – which is why steroid
users look so incredibly lean as well as being incredibly strong. Of course
steroids also have a ton of very serious side effects, so this is a way that we
can get the same kind of anabolic results without the dangers associated with
them.
Building muscle at the same time as burning
fat will help you to create a much superior physique too and this is something
that a lot of people don’t realize. If you’re unhappy with your current
physique right now and you want to look more attractive in and out of your
clothes, then simply losing weight will make you either look very skinny or
potentially even flabby if you have lots of loose skin left over.
Want to get rid of cellulite? Losing weight
won’t do it. The only way to get rid of it is to tone up your legs,
buttocks or whatever the offending area may be.
Want to get a flat stomach? Far from burning
fat, the best way to do this is actually to strengthen the ‘transverse
abdominis’ – the muscle that wraps around your mid-section and that is
responsible for keeping your organs and your gut ‘pulled in’.
The best example of all? The kettlebell swing…
Introducing the
Kettlebell Swing
When you look up HIIT protocols, you’ll find
that it’s very common to see them recommended for kettlebell swings. That’s
because the kettlebell swing is in many ways the ideal choice for HIIT and
especially if you’re interested in building muscle as well as burning fat. And
if you ever visit a CrossFit gym, you’ll always find that both the kettlebell
swing and HIIT are among the favourite tools that they use during their
workouts.
To perform a kettlebell swing, you of course
need a kettlebell. This is an iron ball that has a handle on the top. You can
then lift the ball using the handle and treat it like a dumbbell. Unlike a
dumbbell
though, a kettlebell has the weight located at
the bottom and this moves the center of gravity. Now, as you lift the handle,
the position of the weight will change, altering the angle of the resistance.
You’ll also be able to swing the kettlebell in a variety of ways, which causes
that weight to move away and toward you respectively. This now adds an
additional challenge, which is coping with the momentum of the kettlebell and
avoiding letting it pull or push you off balance.
As a result, the kettlebell uses a lot of
smaller supporting muscles that are overlooked in other types of training and
this helps you to develop ‘functional strength’.
The swinging motion also means that you can
use various different forms of continuous motion, which is ideal for all kinds
of CV challenges. This is exactly our objective when using the kettlebell
swing, where we will be swinging the weight between our legs up and down in a
pendulum motion.
Simply grab the kettlebell in both hands and
choose a weight that is going to become challenging after 20 seconds. You
should be standing straight with your legs shoulder-width apart and the
kettlebell hanging in front of you, held in both hands with arms straight.
Squat down slightly and as you do, allow the
kettlebell to swing in between your legs. Now, push through your legs to stand
back up and as you do, thrust your hips forward to push the weight out in front
of you. Keep your arms straight and don’t attempt to ‘lift’ the weight but
instead let it swing up naturally in front of you. For a traditional kettlebell
swing, it should reach about the height of your shoulders (the ‘American Swing’
reaches above your head).
For a second, the kettlebell will hang in the
air and then it will start to descend again as gravity starts to do its thing.
Follow the trajectory downward and as you do, drop back into the squat position
and let the weight swing back through your legs again. That’s one repetition.
Unlike other weighted exercises like curls or
bench presses, the kettlebell swing is perfect for cardio exercises because you
can keep going and allow gravity to do its thing as you start tiring. Because
you’re involving your muscles though, you’ll find it burns more calories
(simply because it is harder than running normally) and you’ll protect your
muscles from deterioration.
The specific muscles used in the kettlebell
swing are all those that make up the ‘posterior chain’. These are the muscles
in the back and the legs that you use for jumping and for sprinting and thus
this is an excellent way to improve your overall athletic performance.
What’s more is that these are many of the
muscles that we consider most attractive. For women looking to improve their
legs, bums and tums, the kettlebell swing is one of the very best choices. In
fact, there is something of an internet meme going around at the moment called
‘women who squat’. It’s become common knowledge that squatting gives women a great
behind. The kettlebell swing works all the same muscles but also burns fatting,
making it the perfect sculpting tool.
Men who use the exercise meanwhile will
benefit from the core involvement and the weightloss that makes it ideal for
creating toned abs.
The best bit? The kettlebell is simple, cheap
and easy to use. Instead of heading outside in the rain to perform your HIIT workouts,
you can use this right at home over the course of 20 minutes.
Chapter 6: Advanced HIIT Protocols – Tabata, MetCon and Cardio Acceleration
Tabata
We have already mentioned Tabata, which is one
of the best known examples of HIIT and one of the most efficient and brutally
effective options for burning lots of fat and at the same time toning and
building muscle.
The best thing about Tabata? It takes only four
minutes to get an incredibly intense workout. That’s because the split is
incredibly short, consisting of:
20 seconds of high intensity
10 seconds of rest
You then repeat the process for a total of 8 times.
20 seconds might not sound like a long period
of high intensity but when you only have 10 seconds of rest between each burst,
you’ll find it becomes incredibly taxing and that your body will be
begging you to stop toward the end. This is ideal because it will train your
ability to recover and to remove the lactate and metabolites from your system
so that you’re ready to return to your first two energy systems to provide
fuel.
You can use Tabata for running but actually it is arguably more
popular when combined with other exercises such as those ‘resistance cardio’
methods we discussed in the last chapter. Grab a 30kg kettlebell and perform
Tabata using that and you’ll be absolutely exhausted by the end and should be
able to feel your heart racing in your chest. Another good option is to use
some form of jumping exercise – such as jack in the boxes or tuck jumps. You
can even vary it up by creating a circuit that allows you to go from one
exercise to another. We’ll look at this more in subsequent chapters.
Note that if you find Tabata too punishing to begin with, you can
perform fewer repetitions – 4 circuits of Tabata is more than hard enough but
doesn’t have the unwanted side effect of making your heart burst out through
your rib cage.
Tabata is a strange way of training because it
will tax you incredibly in a short space of time but isn’t particularly
effective on its own for weight loss or body transformations due to its
brevity.
A solution is to use Tabata as what is known
as a ‘finisher’. A finisher is a type of workout you do at the end of another
workout, so if you have completed a weight lifting session or perhaps a session
of regular steady state cardio, then you can incorporate Tabata at the end to
finish off and thereby maximize your calorie burn for the rest of the day while
depleting any and all remaining glycogen stores.
Note as well that Tabata is unique from the
HIIT workouts we’ve looked at so far in as much as it has a real ‘rest period’
rather than a period of lighter activity. You can swap this for ‘active
recovery’ if you prefer and do that by holding plank for example, or by jogging
very lightly on the spot.
A Side Note
A side note that applies to Tabata in particular but to all these HIIT
workouts to a degree is just how powerful this is for training your mental
discipline. When you’re absolutely exhausted, pushing yourself to the absolute
limit again can be incredibly hard. This requires a lot of mental
discipline and self-control and that is actually one of the things that is most
exciting and beneficial about HIIT in general.
If you can complete a punishing round of Tabata… then you can complete
anything!
Cardio Acceleration
Finding Tabata too easy? Want more of a challenge?
What is wrong with you??
As it happens though, if you’re that sadistic,
then I do just so happen to have something even worse up my sleeve and this is
also a great choice if you’re someone who is interested in building muscle and
creating a really ripped physique.
Say hello to ‘cardio acceleration’…
Essentially, cardio acceleration is a
perversion of HIIT and of resistance training that combines a full gym workout
with a cardio workout.
Normally, if you are working out in the gym in
order to build muscle, you will do so by performing exercises as ‘reps and
sets’. You perform a ‘set’ of 6, 8, 10 or 12 exercises and then you rest for a
minute before going again.
What you are doing in this case is building up
metabolites in the muscle that stimulate growth and creating microtears. The
heavy weight means that you’re using your fastest twitch muscle fiber, which
means that you’ll be relying on glycogen and ATP stored in the muscle. You thus
need to pause after performing those 10 reps in order to build up the strength
to go again for the next round.
The most common protocol for the gym is to perform 3 sets of 10 reps
on each exercise.
Cardio acceleration turns this into a
monstrosity of a challenge though by removing the minute rest in between each
exercise. You’re still going to give the muscle a rest but you’re no longer
going to give your body a rest because you’re going to perform some kind of
cardio exercise such as tuck jumps, high knees, sprinting, step machine,
skipping etc. And you’ll do this with high intensity.
What you’ll also do, is to target the muscles
that you aren’t using. So if you just performed bench press, then you
won’t use boxing as your cardio to pair it with because that will train the
pecs and shoulders again. Likewise, if you just did squats, you’re not going to
train with kettlebell swings or tuck jumps.
Cardio acceleration works absolute wonders for
your body because it allows you to get all the benefits of a weightlifting
workout and all the benefits of a cardio workout rolled into one. That
means that you will build muscle, while at the same time burning fat.
What’s more, is that you’ll be able to keep
your heartrate high for your entire weightlifting routine. This means that
you’ll burn an incredible number of calories and specifically several hundred
percent more.
Because you’re training the upper body and lower body intermittently,
this also has the advantage of directing blood from top to bottom. In other
words, you’ll need plenty of oxygen and nutrients in your biceps for those
curls and then you’ll need them in your legs for that sprinting. Thus your
heart is working even harder to send the blood up and down and up and down and
you’ll burn even more calories.
The hormonal response to this kind of training is also massive.
There are downsides too though of course. The
first is that cardio acceleration is absolutely horrendous to go through. This
is a serious challenge and should only be attempted once you’re very fit and
very strong already. It’s also something you probably won’t want to do very
regularly.
The other downside is that you won’t build as
much muscle as you would do from a regular weightlifting workout. That’s
because you’ll be depleting your strength and thus won’t be able to perform
your lifts with as much weight or as good technique.
If your aim is to become a massive
bodybuilder-type, then you should stay away from cardio acceleration. However,
if your aim is to become a lean machine who would look incredible on the cover
of a fitness magazine, then you should think about it.
Just be ready for a real challenge!
Fartlek
Fartlek may just be the most ridiculous
sounding name for a workout but it’s actually a very useful tool so let’s not
judge this particularly rose by its name!
In fact, fartlek actually translates directly
as ‘time play’. It is so called because you are going to be dividing your
regular cardio workouts in a manner of ways to suit your particular training
goals. This way, you can combine steady state cardio with interval training and
build towards a variety of different objectives at once.
To explain it simply, fartlek merely means
that you can choose how you want to divide your time between sprinting,
jogging, walking and everything in between. And it doesn’t just have to be time
that is the deciding factor here either – you can just as easily train so that
you switch speed depending on the distance, or so that you watch your heart
rate.
For example, a great way to improve your
recovery times is to sprint for 1 minute and then jog gradually until
your heart rate reaches 70% of your MHR again. When that happens, you increase
your speed once more and then go slow until it is back at 70%.
Another interesting challenge is to introduce
more outside factors to make things more exciting and less predictable. For
instance, keep an eye on the street lamps you are passing. Each time you go
past one, change your speed until the next one. You might sprint, jog, walk,
sprint, jog, walk – or find another way to switch things up. The same thing can
be achieved with a skipping rope or kettlebell.
Alternatively, you can try to jog for distance
and then sprint at the end to burn off the remaining calories and improve your
lactate threshold etc.
Finally, one I find particularly enjoyable is something I call
‘anabolic running’. Here, you simply sprint 100 meters, walk back and then
sprint the distance again. This also has the advantage of letting you perform a
very intensive cardio workout without needing to travel a long distance –
because you don’t always have the luxury of being near a beautiful scenic park
and sometimes you need to stay close to home.
MetCon
MetCon is a portmanteau for the words
‘Metabolic’ and ‘Conditioning’. As this might suggest then, MetCon is a form of
workout that is designed specifically with the goal of helping you to
strengthen your metabolism in order to improve your energy efficiency, resting
metabolic rate and generally your ability to turn food into useable energy.
The aforementioned fartlek example that
challenges you to start running again each time your heartrate reaches 70% can
also be considered an example of MetCon for instance, as this is improving your
ability to clear your blood of metabolites and lactate, as well as your ability
to recover quickly back to a steady resting heartrate. This is a good example
of MetCon as well as a form of ‘zone training’. If you get the right fitness
tracker, then this can actually be used to alert you once your heart rate
reaches specific zones – saving you from constantly having to check your wrist
every minute or so!
More often though, the term MetCon is used to
describe short, focussed bursts of high intensity activity with a minimum
amount of rest in between. A good example is the ‘ladder workout’ which
involves performing 10 good reps of a given exercise (such as pull ups, or clapping
exercises), resting for 30 seconds and then performing 9 reps. You keep going
until you reach 1 repetition, at which point the challenge has ended.
The circuit routines we’ll look at in the next chapter can also be
considered examples of MetCons.
Chapter 7: Creating
Whole-Body Circuit Routines
If you look for a workout on YouTube, then
you’ll find there is no shortage of content available to help out. In
particular, you’ll find a lot of videos from the likes of Mike Chang, Jeff
Cavaliere and other YouTube celebrities that promise you can get great results
in 20 minutes by following along.
Invariably, these workouts will essentially
boil down to circuit routines. They will set up a few stations in a small space
and then they will train on each one for a set amount of time before moving to
the next.
This circuit training is a very simple way of working out that has
been around forever but it is also something that has come back into
vogue in a big way since HIIT became so popular. That’s partly due to their
similarities and with a renewed understanding of what makes HIIT so effective,
we’re keen to apply these same ideas to other types of workout.
Circuit training like this can thereby be
designed to work as a form of MetCon while also offering resistance cardio
(concurrent training) and being very easy to perform in a small amount of space
and short amount of time.
But just because circuit training has the
potential to be highly effective, that certainly doesn’t mean it always is! In
fact, circuit training can very often be a waste of time – and especially if
you watch the wrong channel! (Not all of Six Pack Shortcut’s workouts
are that well thought out for example…).
There is an art to designing the perfect
circuit and getting this right will depend partly on your goals…
How to Design the
Perfect Circuit Routine
The first thing to consider before you begin
your circuit plan, is exactly what it is you hope to achieve through it.
As you’re reading a book on HIIT, chances are
that you want to burn calories and lose fat in a short amount of time and
essentially turn this into a form of HIIT or MetCon. The problem is that a lot
of circuits just don’t offer enough of a challenge for your cardiovascular
system for you to accomplish this. If your workout is made up of sit ups,
stretches and pulling against towels (which is a waste of time, in case you’ve
discovered these workouts on YouTube), then you won’t be depleting your glucose
or increasing your heartrate sufficiently to see results.
Instead, look for exercises that will provide
a high enough intensity to get your heart rate to reach MHR. Remember: that is
the whole purpose of a HIIT workout, so if it’s not happening, you’re
not really doing HIIT. Bodyweight lunges are not intensive unless you’re in particularly
bad shape, so instead try high knees, tuck jumps and kettlebell swings.
Remember that you can also increase your
challenge by performing concurrent training. Kettlebell swings provide a great
example of this but so too can various other challenges – like weighted pull
ups, or muscle ups!
On the other end of the spectrum are those routines that are too
challenging. While you might not like the idea of backing down from a workout,
it’s important to recognize that some routines are simply an invitation for
injury. Chief among these are any routines that involve exhausting your
cardiovascular system and then switching immediately to compound lifts with
heavy weights. Do not exhaust yourself and then perform the muscle up.
The same goes for squats or deadlifts. These movements should go at the start
of the circuit if you choose to include them and you should use a light(ish)
weight to avoid injury. The tireder you get, the more your form will suffer.
That doesn’t matter for an incline press up or a jumping jack but it really does
matter for a deadlift.
Another tip is to build the active recovery
into your routine. If you can get your heartrate up to 95% MHR, then you can
build in a small amount of active recovery at the next 30 second station. For
example, you can perform tuck jumps followed by plank, or muscle ups followed
by light skipping. There will always be a station of actual recovery too
though.
Finally, use other tricks to increase the
calorie burn in a short space of time. If you switch from your legs to your
upper body for example, then your heart will work harder in order to direct
blood from top to bottom, as we discussed earlier. Likewise, you can design
your circuit with different lengths at each station in order to mimic something
akin to cardio acceleration. Or why not use a long session of intense cardio
right at the start of your circuit to increase the heartrate and reduce your
glycogen stores? You can also add your own ‘finisher’ at the end of your
routines.
The best type of circuit routine if your aim is to burn fat and build
muscle will be one that uses every muscle in the body. A whole body routine
will not only provide the most ‘even’ improvements throughout your physique but
will also help you to trigger the biggest release of growth hormone,
testosterone and other anabolic hormones.
Building Muscle With
Circuits
Want to build more size and less definition
with your MetCon circuits? Then a good option is to use the same type of
routine but to focus more on one muscle group.
For example, you might perform only bicep
exercises as your main form of resistance training and schedule CV stations in
between – essentially making a structured form of cardio acceleration. This
will then allow you to focus on one muscle group enough to cause real
damage and metabolic stress. By continuously returning to the same muscle
group, you’ll be able to cause more microtears which will contribute to more
repair and more growth/strength. Likewise, you’ll be able to flood that one
muscle group with more blood and more
hormones, which will make it more likely to grow in a very big way.
This now becomes something more akin to a
bodybuilding workout but with the added cardio in order to provide the benefits
of HIIT. If you don’t have time to focus each session on a different muscle
group, then consider using a ‘push pull’ routine instead and switching between
pushing movements and pulling movements to train the muscles.
Last Works: How to Add
HIIT to a Healthy Lifestyle
Hopefully this book has opened your eyes to the world of HIIT and just
what a powerful training tool this really is. Moreover, I hope that you have
discovered some new forms of HIIT and training that you might not have heard of
before – and maybe you’ve learned that there’s nothing wrong with creating your
own protocols that are better suited to your goals. You know the science,
so why not combine fartlek, cardio acceleration and metcon into one brutal
routine? Get inventive!
Before we go though, make sure you recognize
the importance of combining your HIIT routines with the right lifestyle. If you
want to maximize your fat loss and muscle building, then you should look at
supplementing with extras like creatine and possibly a protein shake. Losing
weight also means eating a healthy diet that maintains a calorie deficit and if
you want to avoid burning out, then you need to make sure you are getting
plenty of rest and lots of sleep.
And don’t throw the baby out with the bath
water! HIIT is amazing, no doubt, but it’s also only one piece of the puzzle.
Steady state cardio still has its advantages and is excellent for improving
your resting heartrate for example. Likewise, you can use regular weight
training in order to build muscle much quicker. Instead of falling in love with
each new training method and forgetting the old routines, instead look at how
you can combine new information with what you already know to create something
even more effective. How about using a Tabata routine at the end of your
workouts as a finisher and throwing some steady state cardio into your routine
as well?
Experiment and find what works for you. But
the very last thing I want to leave you with is that you must make sure
your routine is sustainable. Ask yourself honestly if the routine you’ve
devised issomething you can stick at indefinitely. Remember: although HIIT is
all about fits and starts, general health is a marathon, not a sprint.
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