HIIT Your Fitness Peak By Summer

 

This year is going to be different. This year, you will whip your body into shape by summer. But how? Is it really possible to achieve real fitness in just a few months?

You don't have time for endless cardio, and it is too boring anyway. You're certainly not going to hire a personal trainer and spend hours a day at the gym. There's got to be some way to get fit and sexy without giving up on having a life. There is: It is called HIIT.

What, Pray Tell, is HIIT?

HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. A HIIT workout involves cycles of short, high-intensity exercises, followed by short low-intensity recovery periods. When you work out this way, your heart rate continually varies, rocketing up and down like a roller coaster, from a relatively low level to near your maximum, then back down again. HIIT workouts are tough, but fortunately, they're short.

Typically, a workout entails a short warm up, several alternating cycles of high- and low-intensity exercise, and a cool down period. The whole workout will usually take 45 minutes or so and should be repeated no more than 3 times a week to allow your muscles to recover between workouts.

How does this approach compare to the way you're working out now? Are you jogging for hours each week? Swimming endless laps at the gym? Trying to survive on a strict diet to keep the calories down? Compared to all that, I bet short, hard workouts look pretty good.

Does HIIT deliver results?

Scientists have shown that the continually varying heart rates and exercise levels associated with high-intensity interval training are an extremely effective way to burn fat and maintain or even add to your muscle mass. This is true even though HIIT workouts are often much shorter than traditional workout plans and even though your body's most-efficient fat burning occurs during long slow aerobic workouts like swimming laps. The answer to this seeming paradox is that HIIT workouts cause your metabolism to run hotter during the times between workouts as your system rebuilds itself after the intense workouts.

What's it like to work out the HIIT way?

Are you wondering what a HIIT workout is like?. The details vary depending on who designed the particular program, but they have a lot of common elements to them. On particular commonality is the use of multi-joint movements.

That is, you do exercises like deadlifts that involve multiple muscle groups, instead of curls, which are strongly focused on a single muscle group. Exercises that involve multiple muscle groups in each exercise really cranks up the intensity while making it possible to get a lot done in a short time.

Perhaps the prototypical high-intensity interval training is sprinting. A sprinter's frequent blasts of all-out movement followed by rest periods is HIIT in a pure form. Have you ever looked at the physiques of sprinters? If so, you know what this kind of training program can do .

More and more, short, high-intensity workouts are being recognized as the best way to get in shape, tone your body, strengthen your heart, and burn fat. If you want to achieve true fitness, with a flat belly, solid muscles, and a healthy heart, try a HIIT workout plan.