Busy day and you only have 20mins for a workout?! Well one of the best cardio workouts when short on time is High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT). I’m sure we’ve all heard of it, it’s gotten quite the popular buzz in the fitness world.
So for those who may have been living under a rock this past year, HIIT is a cardio workout where you alternate short periods of high intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. The total workouts can last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.
The perks of HIIT is the fact it takes little time, but is more effective at burning subcutaneous fat than some other types of cardio. This goes hand in hand with a previous blog post where I talked about how longer workouts are not necessarily better for you, nor do they always burn more calories.
From an article on BodyTransformationLab.com, it stated that that “Not only will you be burning more calories in a shorter amount of time, but higher intensity workouts result in higher fat burn as well, especially post workout.” So long after your workout, you’re still burning calories.
So why does a short HIIT workout burn more calories than a long steady workout?! According to an article on AskMen.com , “HIIT is cardio performed at such an intense level that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the ass-kicking you gave it.” This is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Your body is taking in more oxygen recovering from your workout than if you had just done a longer steady-state workout.
AskMen then states, “this means that you will be burning up to nine times more fat while sitting on the couch later that night than you would have if you’d spend an hour on the treadmill at a moderate pace.”
If that’s not enough to convince you to try out HIIT, I don’t know what else would!
Try out this 20-minute HIIT treadmill workout:
Warm up by walking for 5 minutes
Sprint at a speed of 12mph for 30 seconds followed by a light jog or walk for 1 minute (repeat this 7 times)
Cool down with a 5 minute walk.
It’s best to try out this HIIT workouts on treadmills such as NordicTrack C900 Pro, as they have the one-touch speed control. This makes it easier to alternate back and forth between your intervals.
Have you ever tried HIIT? What are your thoughts?
What’s your favorite way to train with high intensity?
Written By: Jentry
