High Intensity Interval Training: You Can Really Burn Up The Fat

First, what is "high intensity" exercise?

Do you lose weight when you exercise? A lot of people don't.

If you don't lose weight when you exercise you might need to change the way you go about it.

The problem might be lack of intensity.

So what is intensity? Intensity doesn't mean working out longer. It doesn't mean more time on the treadmill.

It doesn't really even mean lifting heavier weights.

High intensity means putting more effort into what you are doing.

If you are on a treadmill working out longer is not higher intensity. Making it go faster and steeper is higher intensity.

If you are lifting weights, more weight isn't necessarily higher intensity. But if you push yourself, and if you make yourself do more repetitions than you did the last workout, then that is higher intensity.

It means not quitting when you are tired. It means getting that one extra repetition. Or at least trying to get that extra repetition, really trying, even if you don't make it.

Really pushing yourself, really putting out all you have, is higher intensity.

If you haven't done a lot of exercise in your life the idea of higher intensity may be a little hard for you at first. It might even sound scary. But it can make all the difference for you when you are trying to lose weight.

And what is "high intensity interval training"?

One way to really boost the results from your workouts is "high intensity interval training." They call it HIIT for short.

With HIIT what you do is increase the intensity for a short period, slow down to recover, and then increase the intensity again.For example, if you are running you might sprint for 30 seconds, then jog for 30 seconds, and then sprint for 30 seconds.

Maybe you are not in the best shape. Fine. So you don't go into a flat-out sprint! Don't try to kill yourself off. Be reasonable.

How To Do High Intensity Interval Training

Maybe you are walking -- just walk faster for a while, then slow, then faster again. Or jogging -- just jog a little faster, and then back to your usual pace, then faster again.

See, you put out a little more effort. You push yourself a bit, then take a rest.

Most machines in the gym are set up to do this automatically. You just find the setting that has you work out hard, then easy, then hard again.

Or you can just watch the readout on the machine that tells you how fast you are stepping.

For example, on the Stairmaster you can do 40 steps per minute, then speed up to 60 steps per minute, then back down to 40 steps per minute.

See, you change every 30 seconds or so. Fast, then slow, then fast again.

The real fat burning zone

The reason this works is that nobody can sprint for very long. After 15 seconds you are pretty tired.

So if you are working out for 30-60 minutes you have to slow down and pace yourself. You can't work flat out for the whole time.

In a regular workout you never really get up to maximum intensity and you never really get your heart rate up there.

But you can sprint for a little while. And that will get your heart rate up and really give you a workout. So you sprint, rest, sprint, rest.

That will get you into the fat burning zone for real.

You probably shouldn't try this if you are just beginning or have serious health problems. But when you are ready to take your workouts to the next level HIIT will really burn up the fat.

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