HIIT Yourself To Burn Fat

 

To burn fat & get fit you're probably thinking you'll need to put in lots of time doing long, slow cardio workouts. How exciting. Fortunately, there is a better way. It's called HIIT (or H.I.I.T.) and it should be a key part of your fat loss plans.

So what is HIIT? HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. Instead of trudging away at a steady pace for long stretches of time, as in traditional cardio workouts, a HIIT workout involves several cycles of short, hard exercise, followed by short low-intensity recovery periods. Done right, HIIT workouts are killers, but they don't take a long time and they're a highly-effective way to burn fat and get fit.

Working out this way causes your heart rate to continually vary, going back and forth from a low level to near your maximum rate. HIIT workouts are short, but very tough. A basic HIIT workout consists of a warm-up period, followed by several cycles of varying-intensity exercise, ending with a cool down period. The whole workout will usually take considerably less than an hour.

Research shows that a HIIT cardio program can burn up to 9 times the calories as one that uses traditional cardio. Shorter, more intense workouts that give far better results than longer, more boring ones.

Why is HIIT more effective than traditional cardio? The continually-changing levels of effort in HIIT cause your body to release massive amounts of growth hormone and other chemicals that trigger fat burning and muscle growth. The intense work you do during the session causes your metabolism to run at a higher rate for many hours after your workoutto recover from the stress you just put on it. And the fuel for all this work is body fat.

High-Intensity Interval Training not only works better than traditional cardio, but it fits better into a busy lifestyle. If you're determined to burn fat, you're going to be working out hard already. I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to run long distances every day on top of serious lifting sessions. HIIT is a solution to this problem.

High-intensity interval training can make a huge difference in your {fat loss fat burning} results. But as with other aspects of your effort to burn fat & get fit, gradually increasing the intensity of your workouts is the best way to proceed. HIIT workouts are a particularly strong example of this general rule. I know from bitter experience that trying to do too much HIIT too fast can leave you useless the rest of the day.

The HIIT approach flies in the face of older approaches to cardio, which deal with concepts like optimum fat burning zones and the like. But this is definitely a more effective way to build muscle and burn fat on your way to awesome personal fitness. If you're still not convinced, compare the physique of the typical marathon runner (long, slow distance) to the typical sprinter (short bursts of high-intensity effort). Which one has the kind of body you would want?

Take advantage of high-intensity interval training to burn fat faster while preventing muscle loss. With all its benefits, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) should definitely be part of your complete fitness plan. Just remember that these workouts can be brutal. Increase your HIIT training gradually and you'll start seeing results fast.