HIIT Me With Your Best Shot
When I talk about cardio with a client, it's not about going for a run or sitting on the bike at the gym for an hour, it's about trainingsmarter, not harder, although going your hardest will get the most results. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is about pushing through your lactic system so you canburn fats and carbs more efficiently than you would just doing a low-intensity cardio exercise.
Lactic acid is the only thing that will hold you back from going 100% through your workout and the one way to stop it is oxygen intake. So you're 5 mins into your HIIT session and you feel like you're going to spew…? This is from the lack of oxygen going to your brain, it's too busy making it's way down to the muscles that you are currently using, your heart is pounding and that's a result of your heart's BPM (Beats Per Minute) going through the roof! It's working so hard to get oxygen to your muscles and circulating so fast through your body that it's actually heating up your core temperature, which ultimately results in fat burning.
Your ultimate fat-burning zone is achieved when your heart rate is between 115-145 bpm. To determine what your fat-burning zone heart rate is supposed to be use the following simple formula: Take 220 and minus your current age = this equals your MHR (Age predicted maximum heart rate). To get the low-end of your fat-burning zone multiply your MHR by 0.6 and to get to the high-end of your fat-burning zone multiply your MHR by 0.75.
E.G. 35 year oldFinding MHR: 220-35 = 185Low-end of fat-burning zone: 185 x 0.6 = 111 beats per minuteHigh-end of fat-burning zone: 188 x 0.75 = 139 beats per minute.
When it comes to exercise things can be fun and challenging at the same time! Just make sure you do things that make you feel you are working at your hardest between 10-30% of the time.
Exercises that are often used in HIIT are: Crunches Sit ups Push ups Jump squats Kettle bell swings Medicine ball throws Battling ropes Skipping Lunge walks Mountain climbers Thrusters Boxing Burpees Planks Sleds Box jumps Hammers Tyre flipping
Remember to stretch and eat well for best results!
