High Intensity Interval Training

High intensity interval training is a type of exercising that is gaining popularity. Interval training is nothing new, people have been using it for years to increase endurance and speed, and though you may have heard of interval training before, most have only ever referred to it by its more popular name - High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT. It is often referred to as power cardio.

Let's take a look at why HIIT is called power cardio: High intensity interval training is often called power cardio because this type of training is one of the best things you can do to build power, muscle mass, speed, strength, endurance, and lose fat! Thus it is a powerful cardio workout. the name makes sense.

What is power cardio or high intensity interval training?
It is training is that you do in intervals, by alternating a brief period of exercise with a brief period of rest. Often times by doing this your overall workout length of time is shorter.

What are the benefits of high intensity interval training?
When done right, or in other words, proper power cardio, high intensity interval training, can give you the best of all worlds.
Proper HIIT does the following for you: Helps to
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

Pretty much anyone who works out can find one of their goals or reasons for working out met through power cardio, or high intensity interval training. So, whether you are a beginner or a veteran of working out, and no matter what your fitness goals, power cardio is one of the best ways of helping you achieve them and get fit faster and better.

How do you do high intensity interval training?
The beauty of this type of training besides the many benefits is that it is something you can do regularly without becoming bored because the variations are endless. You will never repeat a workout exactly if you don't want to.

You can vary the training parameters (exercise to rest ratio, number of intervals, etc.) to make the workouts harder or easier, depending on what you are trying to accomplish, how much time you have to workout, or how you feel.

Not only can you mix up the time intervals, you can mix up the actual activities. You can use any number of exercises for your training, such as cycling, sprinting, treadmill, elliptical trainers, jump rope, rope climbing, hill sprints, and more. Like previously stated, the options and variable are endless, so go ahead and try it out, see how fun it can be, and enjoy the many benefits.

It is important to note that because the intervals you are training are more intense than a typical workout, you need recovery time, if you do not give your body a chance to heal itself and refresh and rejuvenate, then your training will do more damage than good.

An example of a week of exercise utilizing high intensity interval training for a fit runner would be as follows:
Monday: Run a mile to a hill, run 10 hill sprints, where you sprint up the hill, walk down, and repeat, then job back.
Tuesday: Run at a medium pace for 30-60 minutes (this allows your body a chance to recover, while still getting in a workout.
Wednesday: High intensity interval training on the track, where you do ladders, sprint a 200, walk back to starting position (200 meters), sprint a 300, walk back to starting position (100 meters), run a 400, take a one minute break and repeat twice.
Thursday: Run 40 minutes, do ten 100 meter dashes, and alternative workout (pool, cycling, etc.)
Friday: Longer run with speed spurts. Run five minutes at normal pace, sprint one minute, run 10 minutes at normal pace, sprint 2 minutes, run 20 minutes at normal pace, sprint 3 minutes.

Rating: 0/5 (0 votes cast)

---

Categories: Exercise,

Help others find this article:
Socializer, Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, StumbleUpon

Favorites: Add to favorites
Tags: power_cardio HIIT high_intensity_interval_training sprints intense_workout