Hiit has a lot to say for cardio. With this training system that accelerates fat burning and increases muscle mass, you are now closer to success.
Don’t look far to reduce your fat, increase your muscle mass or improve your performance! HIIT can give you a fit and strong body.
What is hiit cardio ?, how to make hiit? HIIT training programs that you can apply at home or in the gym. I know you can’t wait to get a fit and strong body.
Then we start!
Update: I have prepared a very extensive guide on cardio. To get information about not only HIIT but all other cardio protocols, see “Cardio Guide: What is it? How to do it?” You can read.
What is HIIT?
High intensty interval training HIIT was developed long ago by athletics coaches to train good runners. HIIT was then called “Fartlek İsveç in Swedish.
The training system consists of two stages of high and low intensity. The first stage, the high intensity athlete, forces himself to the maximum level for a certain period of time. In the following low intensity phase, it may interrupt the training or decrease the intensity of the activity. These two stages can be compared to sprinting and walking tempo.
Physiology of HIIT training system
Why are high-intensity exercises important? This is due to the strengthening of the body while working with maximum performance and the acceleration of fat burning.
But unfortunately it is physiologically impossible to sustain high intensity exercises for a long time. Therefore, instead of high-intensity training that could not be continued continuously, high and low intensity training was needed.
To better understand why you can’t continue high-intensity exercises continuously, let’s examine the changes in your body as you run for 20 minutes at high intensity.
Phosphocreatine pathway
You started running and you are like wind for the first 20 seconds. This is because you use phosphocreatine stores that are stored in your muscles. The sad news is that your phosphocreatine depots run out in 20 seconds!
Lactic acid and oxygen-free glycolysis
You can still run fast after 20 seconds, but it doesn’t seem to take long. With reduced oxygen in your tissues, your lungs began to work overtime. With the lactic acid formed, your muscles will start to hurt. Even an elite athlete cannot withstand this stage too much.
Why can’t we run more with maximum performance? The answer is oxygen.
Oxygen: Magic molecule
The first answer is that it is very difficult to balance oxygen demand and consumption during exercise.
During low intensity exercises, your body uses oxygen to burn carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Energy production using oxygen is efficient but cannot be successful during high intensity exercises. The reason for this is that the tissues do not provide enough oxygen to produce the required energy.
During high intensity exercises, the energy required cannot be produced using oxygen. This is because, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, there is not enough oxygen to meet the needs of the tissues.
Energy production without oxygen is inefficient. Although it uses more carbohydrates, it produces less energy. After a while, the energy produced cannot meet the energy consumed and the body is depleted.
Here is the basis of the HIIT training system!
Oxygen and non-oxygen energy production; both have advantages and disadvantages. If you have started a long journey or training, your carbohydrate and fat stores are important to you. You can produce energy efficiently by using oxygen at a slow pace.
Thus, it protects your oil stores and you can stay in motion for a long time. But if your goal is to get rid of your fats and increase your performance in a short time, you need oxygen-free energy production, ie high-intensity training.
Update: With Afterburn effect, you will continue to burn fat even after the HIIT exercise is over. For more information on this effect, please read my article Fat burning after exercise: the afterburn effect.
Why HIIT?
You will burn more fat during shorter training sessions. Thus, the treadmills that last and boring you, elliptical bikes and so on you get rid of the tools. A non-monotonic exercise program will encourage you to train.
No equipment required. You can do cardio or weight training wherever you want. You can use your body weight, pilates bands or any playground. You will enjoy freedom!
You can increase your testosterone and growth hormone levels with HIIT training. Thus, muscle growth or fat burning, HIIT will get you to your goals in a short way.
Don’t you want to burn fat after training or while you sleep? The HIIT training system allows you to burn 10% more calories even when you are resting with PWOC (post workout oxygen consumption).
HIIT strengthens rapidly contracting muscle fibers. Thus, you will have a body that is more resistant to effort. HIIT also increases your explosive force.
Shorter exercises reduce fatigue and reduce the risk of injury.
How to do HIIT training?
Although there are many ways to improve HIIT training, you can achieve the best improvement with the following two approved methods.
Tabata Protocol
First we will talk about one of the most famous HIIT systems, Tabata protocol. This HIIT discipline consists of 20 seconds training and 10 seconds rest periods.
This discipline is 8 sets in total and lasts for 4 minutes. You can find detailed information about this training system which is known to accelerate fat burning and muscle development in our article “Stay in Form in 4 Minutes with Tabata“.
Free HIIT
High and low tempo training times, regardless of a specific protocol can regulate your needs in this system. If you are a volleyball player, you should work with Air squat or sprint if you are a football player. Time depends on your performance and experience. For a person who has never done HIIT, the HIIT start-up program should be as follows.
For a beginner, the training: rest ratio should be 1: 4. These exercises, which are limited to 15 minutes for 1 week, will prepare you for challenging HIIT workouts.
In the third (2 weeks) stage you need to change the training: rest ratio to 1: 1. Your total training time is 18.5 minutes
The last step is to apply the training: rest ratio to 2: 1. The HIIT time you need to do is 20 minutes.
You worked for one month until the final stage and prepared for the real HIIT pace. The final step is to change your exercises once a month and increase your difficulty.
When applying the HIIT training system, the weight, duration or training: rest ratio is specific to you. The weight you are challenging is the high intensity, the time you run out, your training time. Don’t stick to the rules and get to know your body.
If you get tired early while doing HIIT, you should keep training periods longer. If you are professionalized on HIIT, you can use a shorter training: rest period.
What do I mean?
Beginners practicing HIIT will have a training / rest period of 5 minutes: 1 minute, while individuals professionalized on HIIT may use the training / rest period of 10 seconds: 20 seconds.
So not only the proportions, but also the periods are important.
Research on HIIT
A 2001 study at the East Tennessee state university showed that athletes doing HIIT for 8 weeks reduced fat by 2%.
A study in Australia showed that women who exercise sport for 20 minutes, 12 seconds outrun and 8 seconds rest, lose 6 times more fat than women doing cardio with a 40-minute treadmill.
Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX) in 1996 research showed that athletes doing HIIT training, even 24 hours after training metabolism was working faster.
Although there are many studies on HIIT, I believe that you will find these studies convincing enough.
HIIT training programs
We do not want to condemn you to certain programs, papers or gym instructors. Our goal is to do sports as you want. With a sample HIIT workout we will explain how to create your own HIIT workout.
Sample HIIT training (For intermediate level)
20 seconds burpee 20 seconds rest.
20 seconds V-Ups 20 seconds rest.
20 seconds air squat 20 seconds rest.
1 set takes a total of 2 minutes. The number of sets you need to do for 18 minutes is nine.
Our goal is to accelerate fat burning by increasing the body at the same time to increase fitness.
With Burpee, we trained our leg, chest and arm muscles. We trained our abdominal muscles with V Ups and finally re-worked our hip and leg muscles with Air squat.
When creating a training system
Choose movements that run large muscle groups to burn more fat. Do not run the same zone more than 2 times during a workout. Select compound gestures instead of isolated gestures. Include various sports such as sprinting, swimming etc. in your HIIT program.
With these suggestions you can now prepare your own hiit training program. You can also use the calorie requirement calculation tool if you are carrying the purpose of losing weight, you can discover important tricks with the I want to lose weight article.
