At one point in my life pre kids, I use to be a long distance runner. I use to love the “runners high” that these workouts would provide as well as the sense of pride after accomplishing a race. It also brought be a sense of community, as you would get together with friends to train and then go to fun places and celebrate your hard work together with a race.
And then I had kids…
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t totally blame my lack of running on having children. For me my priorities and desires just changed. When I got a morning to myself, I no longer wanted to spend it running. Although I missed aspects of it, I also enjoyed sitting quietly for 10min or being able to go grocery shopping by myself. I know…it does turn into the little things in life!!
At the same time, I enjoy working out. This is when I turned to HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).
HIIT started really gaining popularity in 2014, and now it seems that it is still a HOT topic.
It sounds too good to be true, like the latest of the weight loss schemes. How can you really get a benefit after only exercising for 10min.
Studies done by Dr Gibala, a professor at McMaster University has been comparing the benefits of doing HIIT workouts, to the gold standard recommendation of moderate to vigorous activity for 150min/week. His results showed that a small dose of HIIT can provide benefits similar to a much greater amount of continuous-moderate intensity training.
Preliminary research is also showing that HIIT workouts are superior to moderate intensity continuous training in improving cardiorespiratory fitness and metabolics diseases such as coronary artery disease and metabolic syndrome.
HIIT workouts are still in the preliminary phase of research. Although the findings look promising, the studies done so far have been short and have been done on young healthy individuals.
That being said, they are deemed to be safe, and are a fast and quick way to overcome the obstacle of finding the time to exercise. Most of the HIIT workouts will only take 12-15min which is easier amount of time to fit in a day.
Most of your local gyms or trainers, will provide classes that include HIIT sessions.
Here are some of my favourite at home versions. They can all be found on youtube, or you can download the free app.
If you have other HIIT resources to share, I would love to hear from you!
Here is the Full Article.
He was also interviewed on the Tim Ferris Show (BLOG) – The One Minute Workout Designed by Scientists