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High Intensity Interval Training Helps You Burn Fat Faster
By admin | August 5, 2008
High intensity interval training will help you burn fat faster and with much less overall training time. Even so, most people today still perform endless amounts of low intensity aerobic and wonder why they aren’t making the fat loss progress they want.
I believe this happens for two reasons. One, most people still aren’t aware of the incredible fat burning potential of high intensity interval training.
Two, this type of cardio fat loss training is very hard work. It’s much easier to walk on a treadmill or spin a stationary bike for an hour than it is to do 10 or 15 minutes of interval training.
With a typical aerobics fat burning program you perform your exercise (treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical trainer, etc.) in a steady state manner at around 60 - 75% of your max heart rate. Usually, your sessions last 30 minutes to an hour and a half.
With interval training your workout sessions are much shorter and you can add a lot more variety into your program. High intensity interval training is just like it sounds.
You alternate all out aerobic exercise with active rest. Here’s an example:
Luckily for me, I have a hill just down the road that is perfect for interval training. I jog over to the hill.
This takes about 4 - 5 minutes and serves perfectly as my warm up. Then I sprint up the hill to the top. This takes me about 15 - 20 seconds. I turn around and walk back down, which serves as my rest interval. I then repeat for a certain number of intervals and the jog (or walk) home serves as my cool down.
Another great interval training program is jump rope. You may need to practice a bit on this one. After a brief warm up, I will jump rope as fast as I can for about 10-20 seconds, followed by a slower cadence for about half a minute.
This form of interval training is brutal and will get your heart rate up fast! You won’t last long on this program.
Always warm up before starting your intervals. If you’re not in the best of shape break into it lightly, starting with more low or moderate intensity cardio. You might also want to check with your doctor. No sense in getting hurt right when you start your interval training.
Interval training has been shown, in study after study, to be a much more effective fat burner than steady stater aerobic exercise.
You will:
1 - Burn more calories by elevating your metabolism so you lose fat faster
2 - Increase your power
3 - Increase your speed
4 - Increase your endurance
No matter what your fitness goals, interval training is one of the best ways of helping you achieve them. And the variations are endless.
You can vary the training parameters (exercise to rest ratio, number of intervals) to make the workouts harder or easier, depending on what you are trying to accomplish.
You can also use any number of exercises for your training, such as cycling, sprinting, treadmill, elliptical trainers, jump rope, rope climbing, hill sprints, and more.
Don’t continue doing endless hours of aerobics that aren’t helping you reach your goals anyway. Get more out of your cardio workouts by performing high intensity interval training.
If you want to build muscle, lose fat and get fit fast, you need to add this type of cardio to your program.
Topics: Cardio Training |