Why high-intensity interval training best for weight loss

If you want to quickly lose fat without losing muscle masses of hours-long exercises on cardiovascular machines, you it will certainly be interesting to learn about high-intensity interval training.

Most of us have been told since childhood that the situation is “more for less money “- this is usually a hoax.

This is especially true if we are talking about weight loss.

All you need to do, production companies tell us dubious food additives, swallow a pill or powder, and you will lose weight in no time.

Well no.

No supplements will give you the body you dream of. Generally saying most of them can’t even help your own effort, because these supplements are completely useless.

All you have to do is tell us the “gurus” of the dubious complexes of exercises, it is to devote several hours a week to them training programs and you will look like Greek the statue.

Well no.

Getting fit is not as difficult as many it seems, but it requires attention to a lot of “little things”, ranging from counting calories and balance of macronutrient intake, ending progressive load, control the frequency of training and so Further.

Workouts a la “7 minutes a week and you’re in shape” and weird diets will not help here.

So, if you’ve already heard of high-intensity interval training (also known as HIIT or HIIT), you know what about they are told similar things: that they have an almost magical ability to burn fat.

That they can be done a couple of minutes a day, and the fat itself will be to erode from the body.

Well no.

High Intensity Interval Training for Fat Burning can become a powerful tool if you know how to properly use.

And here is what you will learn about:

• What is high intensity interval training (and how they are not).
• Why do they work so well for burning subcutaneous fat.
• Why are they more effective than low-intensity cardio loads for body recomposition.
• How to carry them out correctly.

By the end of the article, you’ll learn how to make every drop sweat paid off to the maximum.

But if you do not want to read, then right now you can go to fat burning training with a skipping rope for 12 minutes a day.

• What is a high-intensity training (and what it is not is an)?
• How intense should active intervals be?
• Intensive workouts and fat burning
• High intensity training and your muscles
• How to develop an effective HIIT program
• The best types of HIIT cardio
• How intense should active intervals be?
• How “rest” should rest periods be?
• How long should interval training last?
• How often do interval training do?
• What about nutritional supplements?
• Interval and strength training, taking supplements for fat burning
• Intensive Fat Burning Workout: Conclusion

What is a high-intensity training (and what it is not is an)?

High-intensity interval training or, in short, HIIT, this, in short, is a training style where you change periods (almost) maximum and low intensity.

Which, in fact, is described in the title.

Intensities of high intensity force the body to give all its best to the verge of their metabolic capabilities (almost on your maximum), while low-intensity intervals allow recover (to catch your breath).

Most likely, you already knew this, but you probably any questions left, such as …

• How “intense” should active intervals be? How strong and how long do they need to withstand?
• How do rest intervals work?
• How long should fat burning workouts last?
• How often do you need to train like this?

And as in principle, as efficiently as possible independently engage in intense training and generally paint mode?

Let’s find out!

How intense should active intervals be?

If you go over the scientific research concerning high-intensity training, you can see that they often mention is made of something called VO2 max.

VO2 max of your body is a measure of the maximum volume of oxygen, which the body can use, and the main factor in determining the level of endurance.

It relates to HIIT as follows:

Studies show that in order to maximize the benefit of interval training, you need to reach 80-100% your VO2max during the active interval.

And all this, of course, is great, but not very applicable in practice, because it’s quite difficult to evaluate your VO2max right during exercises for interval training. Just because no reliable indicators that would allow you exactly anything to determine.

Fortunately, you can work with a more practical parameter: Vmax.

In short, you have reached the Vmax voltage level when you Feel you cannot breathe in as much air as you require your body (if you can freely maintain conversation during exercises, you are not even close).

For most people, this is approximately 90% of their maximum efforts.

1. Your goal during intense periods is to achieve and maintain your vmax.

In other words, you need to move fast enough and long, so that breathing becomes difficult, and also maintain this speed is a certain period of time.

As you may have guessed, this requires considerable effort. What is it like sprint, not like jogging.

2. Throughout your workout, your goal is methodically reach and maintain maximum level voltage.

It seems to be taken for granted, but it requires focus because the amount of time you spend at the maximum level of effort, determines the overall the effectiveness of interval training.

So the metabolic training you were at the maximum level, say, a minute, will be much less effective, than if you brought this figure to at least a few minutes.

Fortunately, this is more a question of competently composed activities than the need to bend reinforcement by willpower.

We’ll talk more about exercise routines soon, but if you’re all still in doubt, here’s a motivator for you.

So, here is a quick guide to interval training.

Let’s see why you should prefer such training lighter and less intimidating types of cardio.

Intensive workouts and fat burning

Most cardiovascular machines have pretty indicators, who recommend that you keep your heart rate in fat burning zone.

If you do this, it is believed that you maximize the amount fat burned during exercise, in contrast sugar.

There is a grain of truth in this.

During classes, you burn both fats and carbohydrates, and proportions burning varies depending on the intensity of the exercise.

However, studies show that with increasing intensity muscle exercises rely more on glycogen than on reserves fat.

This means that the more intense you are, the more becomes the fraction of energy generated from glycogen stores, and not at all fat.

This is why low-intensity activities, such as walking, are more influential. for fat while high-intensity sprints are bigger involve carbohydrate (glycogen) sources.

Here are the main reasons why many people think that low intensity static cardio is best for losing weight by burning fat.

A lot of research, such as research, conducted by Laval University, State University East Tennessee, Baylor College of Medicine and University New South Wales, however, suggests otherwise.

In particular, they show that shorter, interval weight training leads to greater fat loss over time time than longer sessions with low intensity.

What does it give?

Well, let’s start with the obvious: total calories, burned during training.

High-intensity exercise burns more calories than low-intensity exercises as well as fat loss dictated by the energy balance, the advantage is obvious.

Let’s imagine that you run several times a week and burn about 200 calories per run, of which about 100 are from fat reserves.

Combined with proper calorie deficiency, these workouts will help you build faster.

Better, however, would be intense training equal durations that burn, say, 400 calories per session, 150 of them would be from fat reserves.

Whatever diet, weight loss workout that burns the most energy will lead to the greatest loss of fat, you will lose weight faster.

But energy consumption alone during exercise is not fully explains why high-intensity workouts are better for weight loss.

A study by the University of Western Ontario yields us an idea of ​​how effective they are at the very business.

Researchers had 10 men and 10 women who trained 3 times a week, one group performed from 4 to 6 30-second sprints (with rest from 4 to 6 minutes in between), another did slow cardio (running on a treadmill in “magic” weight loss zone at 65% VO2 max).

What was the performance?

After 6 weeks of training, subjects involved in interval workouts, lost more fat.

Yes, 4-6 30-second sprints burn more fat than 60 minutes walk on an incline treadmill.

Scientists still do not know the exact mechanism that makes training wiit so effective, but they revealed several important factors:

• Increased metabolic rate within 24 hours after programs.
• Hypersensitivity to insulin in the muscles.
• Higher levels of fat oxidation in muscles.

• Significant jumps in the level of growth hormone (which helps in weight loss) and the level of catecholamine (a substance produced body to mobilize and burn fat stores).
  • Post-exercise appetite suppression.
  • Suppressing appetite after exercise.
  • Etc…

The answer of science is clear: if your goal is to burn maximum fat in minimum time, HIIT is your choice.

High intensity training and your muscles

In the minds of most people working with weights, cardio and muscle gain – things are more or less opposite.

Either one or the other.

And, again, there is some truth to this, but at the same time it’s a kind of simplification.

For example, studies have shown that a combination of training on strength and endurance (if you do them at the same time) can slow down the growth of strength indicators and muscle growth than if if you were only engaged in strength training.

Studies also suggest that the longer your cardio classes, the more they slow down the growth of strength and volume.

However, this does not mean that cardio training directly interferes. muscle growth. Because it does not.

This only happens if cardio is too much. a lot of.

Cardio in proper amounts actually accelerates muscle growth for the reasons described here.

But what volume can be called appropriate, including for training at home?

Well, there are two factors to consider:

• The duration of individual cardio classes.
• The total amount of cardio performed every week.

And if your goal is to improve your physique (and this requires progress in the zone of weights), then cardiosessions should be short, and the average duration for a week is quite small.

Only HIIT meets these criteria and burns significant amount of fat.

How to develop an effective HIIT program

So, let’s say you are ready that HIIT will burst into your life.

In order to develop a training program, you need to consider five things:

1. Cardio Type
2. Training duration
3. Training frequency
4. The duration and intensity of the active interval
5. The duration and intensity of the rest interval

Let’s look at each item individually.

The best types of HIIT cardio

HIIT principles can be applied to any type of cardio, but some species are more practical (and effective) than others.

Simply put, the three best options are …

1. Bike
2. Rowing
3. Sprint

Cycling and rowing are my favorites because sprints sometimes heavily affect the legs and are likely to be intersect with your squats and deadlift.

The reason I prefer these three over the others is because that studies show that the type of cardio that you doing significantly affects the ability to increase performance strength and volume in working with weights.

In short, this is the case:

The more cardio exercise is like the movements you use for muscle building, such as, for example, sitting down or traction of the bar to the lower back, the less it prevents the growth of indicators strength and volume.

This makes sense, because one of the most important parts building up strength is simply a repetition of some kind of movement. (Than the more you make this movement, the better you get it.)

And yet, if you do not know how or do not like to ride bike, row or run sprints, don’t be “afraid” of other shapes cardio loads such as swimming, rope jumping, calisthenics, boxing, short fitness and so on. They will not hurt your muscles.

Again, the biggest mistake with cardio is too much a lot of cardio.

How intense should active intervals be?

HIIT’s goal is fast and heavy, not slow and heavy load.

This means that if you use an exercise bike or rowing simulator, you need to choose the right resistance for the pedals or cable so that the cardio does not turn into a power exercise.

That is why the main difference between active and calm the interval should be speed, not resistance force.

This means that you need to increase and decrease the resistance, but not at all in the range of values ​​in which it increases and speed decreases.

So, as you already know, the key factor determining interval training is the total number of minutes at maximum voltage level.

If you spend too little at this level, it is only a kind of real interval training, if too much, you burn out quickly.

Maximum time at maximum voltage level at, say, sprint, you achieve if you try to accelerate like possible faster.

No need to “swing”. Try your best at every jerk without balance from the first second.

Regarding the duration of active intervals, 50-60% of your Tmax is enough if your goal is fat burning and strengthening metabolic health.

Tmax is just the amount of time you can spend with maximum load before you are forced stay.

For example, if I can ride a bike with maximum 3 minutes before I feel that my heart is now explode, then my Tmax – 3 minutes.

So the duration of my active intervals should be around 90-120 seconds (and yes, it’s hard!)

To determine the time of your intervals, you can check your Vmax (all you need for this is a stopwatch), or, if you new to interval training, start with 30 second active phases.

Your high-interval workouts should gradually become harder and harder.

The more you do HIIT, the more your Tmax. This means that the duration of your active intervals should also increase if you want them to stay as effective as possible.

As you can see, such training can be enough difficult even for experienced athletes.

Three interval training studies were conducted, in which experienced athletes involved in circular training, gave all the best for 5 minutes (and it improved them results). In contrast, as a result of others studies where the active intervals of athletes were 2 and 1 minute, it was found that to improve the results of this not enough.

How “rest” should rest periods be?

There are two methods to make training harder:

1. Increase the duration of the active phases.
2. Reduce the duration of the phases of rest.

In general, I recommend for beginners to work on increasing the duration of active intervals until you reach 50-60% of your Tmax. Only in this case you do the actual high-intensity interval workouts.

When you have achieved this, see for yourself where you want move.

It seems reasonable to shorten the rest periods until the ratio active will not be 1: 1 (90 seconds of intensive work, after which followed by 90 seconds of rest, for example), and then slowly increase duration of both active and calm phases, keeping the same proportion 1: 1.

Suppose, for example, that you start your interval training with 30 second active phases followed by a period 60 second rest (1: 2 ratio).

Over time, you calculate your Tmax and ensure that your active phases account for 50-60% of it, which is approximately 60 seconds. You work at this level, maintaining a proportion of 1: 2 (then have your calm intervals of 120 seconds).

As you progress, you will feel that you can do more, and leaving active phase time is the same, 60 seconds, start to reduce the period rest, reducing it to 90 seconds (ratio 1: 1.5).

Gradually, your body will adapt and you will be able to reduce rest period up to 60 seconds (1: 1 ratio), and when you need it it becomes easy, you start to increase both active and calm periods up to 90 seconds.

(Etc.)

You also need to know that calm periods should be active. recovery when you keep moving and not freeze on location.

Studies show that active rather than passive recovery contributes to maximum speed during time of the intensive phase and helps the body adapt to what is being done exercise.

How long should interval training last?

One of the best things about interval training is big the return on things that don’t seem so costly. No a more effective way to use cardio in order to burn fat and get in shape.

However, their disadvantage is that for the body it is a lot of stress, which means that you can overdo it.

Follow these simple rules and everything will be fine:

1. Start interval training only after 2-3 minutes of light exercise. warm up
2. Perform 20-30 minutes of interval loads
3. Finish your workout with 2-3 minutes of a slight hitch.

And you’re done!

There is no particular need to conduct longer workouts if only athletes do not need to improve any indicators, but do not lose weight.

If you feel that interval training is wrong effective, as you would like, most likely you need to draw attention to nutrition during interval training.

How often do interval training do?

The total duration of interval training per week depends on your immediate goals and what other exercises you do it.

If you want to quickly lose weight, you do not need to exercise more than 4-7 hours a week, and ideally it is better to train with burdening than cardio.

For example, my training and diet programs for both men and for women prescribe only 3 to 5 hours of work with weights and 1-2 hours of interval training per week.

This way you will lose fat but not muscle and maintain healthy metabolism.

What about nutritional supplements?

I saved it for the last time, because, frankly, it’s much less important than proper diet and exercise.

The fact is that not supplements will provide you with a good physique – it’s will make perseverance, proper exercise and a healthy diet.

Unfortunately, the plague of the sports supplement industry is pseudoscience, hype about nonsense, advertising designed to introduce into misconception, promotion of doubtful goods due to high-profile names, garbage products, products that are missing key ingredients and many other similar frauds.

Most supplement companies produce cheap dummies and try to make a fool of your head marketing statements, names of some famous personalities (which is quite expensive for them), supposedly scientific chatter, fancy names of proprietary blends and vibrant packaging.

So, although nutritional supplements do not play a key role in muscle growth and getting rid of fat, and many of them will simply become a waste of money … some correct ones can still help.

The bottom line is that there are safe natural substances and science proved that they are useful in increasing strength indicators, stamina, muscle growth, weight loss and so on.

Part of my job is to know what kind of substances and find products containing them so that they themselves use and recommend to others.

However, finding a high-quality, effective product for honest price has always been a challenge.

But as part of this article, let’s quickly go over the supplements, which will help you get the most out of your interval workouts and make your weight loss efforts more effective generally.

Caffeine

Since weight reduction is reduced to the ratio of consumed and calories burned, caffeine helps you lose fat by boosting daily energy costs of the body.

Caffeine also promotes muscle endurance, strength, improves indicators under anaerobic loads, and also removes the “morning weakness “, known to many people working with weights.

In order to maximize the fat-burning effect of caffeine you need to prevent the body from getting used to it. And the best way To do this, of course, is not to abuse it.

Here is what I recommend:

Before training, take 3-6 mg of caffeine per kilogram. own weight. If you are not sure about your sensitivity to caffeine, start with 3 mg / kg and increase the dose if necessary.

Let your daily dose not exceed 6 mg per kilogram own weight. No need to take 6 mg / kg before training, but then drink a few more cups of coffee during the day.

There should be 1-2 days with low caffeine intake per week and 1 day without caffeine at all. On such days, the dose should be half your norm, and a day without caffeine means no more than 50 mg (you can drink one or two cups of tea, but no coffee, caffeinated tablets, etc.)

Interval and strength training, taking supplements for fat burning

Before you collapse the topic, I want to quickly show how all this works together, and how to make this a powerful mode to get rid of fat. This is exactly what I do when I dry, and it’s real works.

If you need optimal results, workout with weights you need to do 5 times a week, and interval – 3-4, 25 minutes per an approach.

Here’s what the training and supplementation regimen looks like:

Before power:

I wake up, drink water and get ready for weight training. I have to go to about 15 minutes, so before leaving I accept:

• BCAA
• Pre-workout complex
• Fat burner

Then I work out with weights 45-60 minutes and after that I have the first meal of the day, in which about 40 grams of protein and 100 gram of carbohydrates.

Dinner:

My lunch is a light salad with chicken and balsamic vinegar in seasoning quality. I do this to insulin level stayed at baseline until 5:30 pm for quick cardio.

If I ate a more hearty lunch, where would it be, say 40 grams protein, 60 grams of carbohydrates and 20 grams of fat, insulin to 5:30 would rise.

At lunch, I do not take any supplements to lose fat.

Around 5:30 pm, in front of cardio

About 15 minutes before a super intense cardio I I accept:

• Fat burner
• Pre-workout complex

Then I have 25 minutes of intense sitting training an exercise bike, after which I eat about 30 grams of protein.

If you combine the above scheme with the right diet for losing weight, you will quickly lose fat.

Intensive Fat Burning Workout: Conclusion

If some supplement or training system claims that is a “quick way” to gain muscle or drive fat, rather all this is a lie.

But high-intensity interval training gives real results.

For fat loss, they are significantly more effective than traditional slow unhurried cardio.

The bottom line is, do you want to get rid of fat or improve your athletic performance, or both, you should include interval cardio into your practice.