It’s not surprising that daily exercise can help boost our life, however, sometimes we get bored with doing the same routines over and over. It can help to change things up from time to time, and your body will probably be shocked by the sudden shift, which will help bring about change.

HIIT (High-intensity interval training) has gotten extremely popular over the past few years in the fitness scene. The whole idea behind the method is to be able to train in intervals.

Intervals in HIIT are done by spending the majority of your exercise in high-intensity. This is usually determined by a fast heart rate and of course, the sweating that comes with that. You then spend the other percentage of your time in low-intensity.

The general rule of thumb with HIIT is to spend 70% of your HIIT workout in high-intensity and around 30% in low-intensity.

This has become a very popular form of training.

The good thing is that you can mix HIIT with any form of workout that you already have been doing. This means that if you prefer lifting weights at the gym but want the benefit of a HIIT workout then you can do so. The same as if you prefer cardiovascular training such as swimming, you can incorporate any workout into HIIT. 

What are the benefits of HIIT Training?

• Studies have shown that HIIT can burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.
• HIIT can improve oxygen consumption. This is done via a marker known as Vo2 Max.
• Studies have shown that your metabolic rate is higher for hours after exercising, which is a major benefit in the long run.
• It can reduce heart rate and blood pressure as studies have shown.

How To HIIT Training

As mentioned previously, you want to spend the majority of your workout in high-intensity whilst spending the lower end of the spectrum in lower-intensity.

You can combine any of your favorite workouts together in order to create what we’ll call a HIIT circuit, this can be as simple as two exercises.

For example, let’s say that you wanted to do cardiovascular HIIT training. This means an aerobic exercise such as running, swimming, or cycling. Below are some sample HIIT workouts that you can use for such exercises. Use them to create an idea of how you would want your own HIIT workout to look with your chosen fitness regime.

For running, you may want to do something such as this:

• Jogging for 2 minutes
• Pushing yourself with a sprint for 30 seconds
• Repeating this cycle 5 times or until you’re exhausted

You can change it up if you notice in here the light exercise has taken precedence. This is because running is very intense and if you haven’t been running lately you probably can’t sprint for 2 minutes and jog for 30 seconds.

The whole point of HIIT is to reach a level of exhaustion after a few repeated attempts of exercise. You don’t want to burn out after 5 minutes but you don’t want to feel at ease either after 15 minutes. You want to find the balance where you can get at least 20-30 minutes of working out but feeling completely exhausted after.

For swimming, on the other hand, you may be looking at a HIIT routine such as this:

• 25m freestyle at 100% intensity
• 25m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
• 25m freestyle at 100% intensity
• 25m freestyle at 100% intensity
• 25m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
• 25m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
• 25m freestyle at 100% intensity
• 25m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
• 25m freestyle at 100% intensity
• 25m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity

As you can see with the above workout, this is working at a 50/50 intensity level. Again not like the 70/30 that I mentioned (Which was only a good rule of thumb). You can play around with the routines as you please as I have above.

You will notice there are more moments of intensity at the beginning and then it becomes more of a controlled routine towards the end.

The ultimate goal is to be able to get a sweat-inducing workout with a feel-good feeling at the end of it all when those endorphins are released.

As previously mentioned as well, you can do this with any type of training. For example, if you’re working out at the gym you can do a HIIT workout by doing squats, followed up with pushups and/or jumping jacks. Although if you’re doing a HIIT routine with squats, you may want to lower the weights to prevent any potential injury when starting out.

Once you’ve got the HIIT routine down pat, you can go ahead and make adjustments to your routine and the strength level.

Conclusion

Now that you know what HIIT exercises are, the benefits of it, and how to create your own, you can go and start developing your own routine.

The main goal is to get out there consistently and keep the training fun. This is what will eventually evolve into a routine that you’ll enjoy and before you know it you’ll start crushing your goals and actually enjoying the process.

About The Author:

Marko Rakic is a trail runner from Sydney, Australia. When he’s not packing on the miles running, you will find him posting on his Health and Fitness blog, The Ultimate Primate.