Tips for high intensity Interval Training

As people become more aware of the health benefits of losing weight and exercising, a training method that has gained a large amount of popularity is High Intensity Interval Training. This is where you exercise intensively for a certain period of time, generally one minute to thirty seconds and then rest for a similar period of time.



There have been numerous studies showing that there are greater benefits from this type of training over exercising at a steady pace for longer periods of time. It enables you to lose weight faster than steady exercise, it increases your bodies ability to use oxygen faster, thus improving your aerobic fitness more rapidly and it also improves your endurance. One of the main factors that is making it so popular is that it takes less time.

A common reason people don’t exercise is that they can’t find enough time to do it. High Intensity Interval Training takes less time but has greater benefits than exercising at a constant pace for longer. This means that people with busy lives are generally more likely to start and stick to the more intensive type of training.

Method of exercise

So what is the best exercise can you do to ensure you get the benefits from training at intense intervals, let’s have a look at some examples:

• The level of intensity and frequency in your workouts should vary depending on how used to working out you are when you first start training. If you are a beginner exerciser you should start slowly and work your way up to greater intensities.

• One minute sprinting with 1 minute walking or slow jogging is the best way to begin training.  When you first start out you may want to increase your rest time to 1.5 minutes and over time bring that time down. If you can keep your rest time on par or just above your exercise time you will get maximum benefits. You can do this for anywhere between 5 and 10 repetitions. 

• You will find that how hard you can train will vary, some days you will be able to do more repetitions than others, depending on how much exercise you have done before that day or what you have eaten.  

• Sprinting isn't necessarily the only form of exercise you can do, you can get the same benefits from swimming, using a rowing machine or other trainer in the gym. As long as you are pushing your major lower and upper body muscle groups to maximum intensity for intense periods then you will experience the benefits.

Body composition

Different types of training have different results on how your body will look. Exercising at a steady pace for a longer length of time will start to burn muscle far faster than High Intensity Interval Training which explains why long distance runners generally look skinny. The body composition of a sprinter who trains at intervals is more muscular because with the right diet high intensity training can actually help to build muscle.

Having a more muscular physique actually helps to burn fat easier as excess calories consumed by your body are required by the muscles rather than being stored as fat.

Submitted by : This article was contributed by Patrick Martin who writes for Interglobal, an international medical insurance company who promote healthy living.