What You Should Know About Interval Training (HIIT)

When most people think of cardio, they think of long runs in nature or endless hours on the treadmill. There is a cardio method that takes much less time and is far superior to jogging to help you burn fat. It is called high intensity interval training (HIIT). This article will give you the basics so you can take your body to a new level of fitness.

What is interval training

Interval training switches between high and low intensity workouts. For example, sprinting for 60 seconds and running out for 60 seconds is high intensity interval training. HIIT can be used both anaerobically in the gym with weights and aerobically as a cardio method. Our trainers at the Clever fit Kotva gym can explain these training methods to you in more detail.

Why is HIIT a good cardio method to burn fat?

Exercise physiologists believed that "steady-state" cardio is optimal for fat loss because the body uses more fat as fuel at lower exercise intensities than at higher intensities. At higher intensities, you burn much fatter, even though the fat/glycogen ratio is lower. In addition, with interval training, you can train at very high intensities for much longer than you can in steady state, so you burn more fat. As an added bonus, there is also an afterburn effect called over-post-exercise oxygen consumption. This increases your metabolism, and you are still burning calories up to 24 hours after interval training, whereas jogging burns almost NO calories after a workout.

Other benefits of interval training

In addition to burning a lot of fat, high intensity interval training offers a number of benefits

• Increased aerobic capacity: The amount of oxygen your body can use (oxygen uptake) is increased, so your overall aerobic capacity can increase faster than with low-intensity endurance training
• Increased lactate limit: Your ability to break down lactate is improved. Thus, your lactate level will increase more slowly.
• Improved insulin sensitivity: Your muscles absorb glucose more easily.

If this article has inspired you to give HIT training a try, just talk to our staff at the Clever fit Kotva gym, let them advise you and create a training plan at your request that will give you the best possible start.