Is High-Intensity-Interval-Training (HIIT) Worth It?
The Pros and Cons of HIIT Cardio
Link to the Original Article
We’re all busy. Yet, we are not busy enough to justify not exercising. You’d be surprised at how little time you need to spend exercising every day to reap all of the benefits of exercising. Maybe you don’t have time to go on a 2-hour run or lift weights for an hour. But, everyone has 20 minutes, and this article will teach you how to make the most out of your 20 minutes. “How?” you might ask: the answer is high-intensity-interval-training (HIIT) cardio.
What is HIIT?
HIIT stands for “high-intensity-interval-training.” The easiest way to understand HIIT is to think of it as intermittently switching between exercising using your maximum effort and exercising using minimal effort. There isn’t any specific movement that you have to perform to do HIIT — one can do HIIT on a bike, rowing machine, using kettlebells, or just bodyweight. Some programs out there that even go so far as to do ordinary weightlifting moves, like squats, using HIIT.
The Benefits of HIIT
High-intensity-interval-training brings with it many benefits. Aside from all of the obvious benefits — i.e., improved heart health, lower blood pressure, and overall improvements on all biomarkers (these are ‘obvious’ because any forms of exercise come with these benefits)— the main one is that you can burn a lot of calories in a very short period of time. Research shows that a 20-minute HIIT workout burns more calories than 60-minutes of moderate-intensity incline walking. Many of us don’t have a whole hour in our days to go on a walk, but almost all of us have 20-minutes.
Another benefit of HIIT is that it improves lung capacity and oxygen consumption, making HIIT a particularly prudent option for athletes. And it must be noted that when compared side-by-side with low-intensity forms of cardio, like walking, and moderate-intensity forms of cardio, like running, research has repeatedly shown that HIIT produces identical beneficial effects in lung capacity and oxygen consumption, but in much less time.
In my own athletics, I’ve noticed these effects quite saliently. To give an example, I am not a runner. My exercise routine consists of lifting heavy weights 5x a week, doing HIIT 2x a week, and doing Bikram yoga 1x a week. My physique has transformed considerably from training this way. Take a look at a 7-year transformation picture of mine:
On the left, I am 16 years old. On the right, I am 23 years old.
Despite my not being a runner, one day, out of the blue, I decided to test myself. “How long can I run?” Having never trained as a runner, I ended up running for about 9 miles in an hour and a half when I did test myself. Not bad for someone who never runs.
The Myths Surrounding HIIT
If I were to have published this article, say, 4 or 5 years ago, the section on HIIT and its benefits would have been a lot longer. That’s because, 4 or 5 years ago, many influential figures in the fitness industry believed that HIIT was some magic bullet.
For instance, a lot was made of HIIT being able to burn calories and fat after finishing your HIIT workout. This was referred to as the “after-burn” effect. And there is truth to this claim. Research does show that there is indeed an after-burn effect associated with HIIT cardio. But this after-burn effect was overblown in its size and scope for a very long time. I used to hear folks saying that it would make a night and day difference in calorie and fat burning — to the point of saying you could burn hundreds of extra calories a day simply by doing HIIT. Now we know that the after-burn effect from HIIT is very mild, allowing for, at most, an extra 70 calories burned per day, which in the context of losing weight, is quite negligible.
Likewise, it used to be thought that HIIT could help you gain muscle. This, too, is a myth. But it is not an unfounded myth either. HIIT often replicates movements that are akin to weightlifting movements. For example, sprinting on a bike utilizes most of the same levers and bodily movements as a barbell back squat does. Not to mention, there have been some studies published suggesting HIIT can increase muscle mass in the legs and trunk. However, these are all preliminary studies. And in these studies, the effects are only seen in older research participants who had little muscle mass. To begin with. If you are an athlete or a frequent gym-goer, it's doubtful that you’ll experience increases in muscle mass by using HIIT.
In fact, there is good research now suggesting that HIIT might impair your ability to gain muscle. There is what is called the “interference-effect” in the exercise science world, which essentially an umbrella term representing the fact that weightlifting and cardio tend to interfere with one another. If you do too much cardio or cardio that is too intense, it will interfere with your weightlifting performance, making it more difficult to gain muscle and strength. Again, though, my sense of this particular myth is that the way HIIT affects one’s ability to gain muscle and strength is different from individual to individual.
I, for one, have been capable of continually gaining muscle and strength while regularly incorporating HIIT into my workout routine — and there is research showing that I am not alone in this capability. Thus, if you are an athlete who is worried about stagnating in their weightlifting progress due to utilizing HIIT, you should experiment. Try doing HIIT and see how that affects your weightlifting progress. If it doesn't affect your weightlifting progress, feel free to continue doing HIIT if you enjoy it. If it negatively impacts your weightlifting progress, you’ll have to have a conversation with yourself about what your priorities are — but if lifting weights is your number one activity, I’d err on the side of letting HIIT go and opting for low-intensity walking.
How to Do HIIT
First, let’s talk about warm-ups. Yes, you need to warm up for cardio, too—especially high-intensity cardio. So simply warm up for HIIT and do 5–10 minutes of low-intensity cardio before getting into your HIIT sets.
There are a wide variety of ways to do HIIT cardio. First, I’ll tell you the way I like to do it. I use what is known as an airdyne bike for my cardio. The airdyne bike is the most hardcore piece of gym equipment — second to the barbell — that you will find in any gym.
Why? The harder you push, the more resistance is added. And on top of that, the harder you push, the faster cold wind will blow in your face, making it much harder to breathe. Nine times out of ten, if you go to a gym that has an airdyne bike, it will have collected dust from its vacancy. It's that tortuous. I only use it because I am a masochist. Feel free to opt for gentler forms of movement if you wish to, as the airdyne bike is not for the faint of heart.
In any case, my workout on the airdyne bike consists of 20 seconds of full-effort sprinting, followed by 40 seconds of low-intensity biking. I fluctuate back and forth between these two levels of intensity (20 on, 40 off) for 20 minutes, twice a week. However, this is not the only method of doing HIIT.
I had to build up to doing sets of 20-second sprints followed by 40 seconds of low-intensity cardio. And if you are inexperienced at doing HIIT cardio, you will have to as well. Those inexperienced in doing HIIT might want to start with what is known as the Timmons Method. The Timmons Method consists of 20-seconds of maximum capacity exercise followed by 2 minutes of low-intensity cardio. 2 minutes of low-intensity cardio is more than enough time for most people to catch their breath and recover from their high-intensity sets. A session of the Timmons Method is 9 minutes and 20 seconds.
To progress from the Timmons Method, either reduce your rest periods when you adapt to 20 seconds on, 2 minutes off. Or, increase your high-intensity sets when you adapt to 20 seconds on, 2 minutes off. And, another way to progress is to increase your total sets, and therein, increasing the total time spent doing HIIT. So, if you start off doing 9 minutes, do 9 minutes for a few weeks, and then 10 minutes. Then, continue adding minutes to this over time until you hit 20 minutes of HIIT.
If you follow this progression scheme over the course of months, you will improve your cardiovascular health — and, really, your overall health — and athletic performance considerably.
HIIT is a great way to get yourself into shape. It is also a great way to save time on your fitness journey. If you are hard-pressed on time and looking to still reap the benefits of doing cardio regularly, HIIT is worth adding to your fitness routine.
