In this post we’re going to answer a few questions on High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T) Hence, the Spartacus workout.

 

It’s becoming very popular for cardio training, but a lot of people are coming in the gym and ask questions about this because not really any guidance out there on the correct forms of H.I.I.T training for specific goals.

So now we’re going to answer the most popular questions and hopefully help a few people out there on the YouTube page and Facebook page.  We’re going to clarify high intensity interval training, is it more effective than regular cardio for burning fat, making me fitter?  And also;

• How to work out the type of intervals you should be doing?
• How long the workout should be?
• How long the interval should be?

Because there’s different ways of doing this stuff for different goals.

First of all, what is high intensity interval training?  All right.  A lot of people get bored with regular cardio.  Imagine being on a bike or a treadmill for an hour, gets a bit dull, right?  You tend to zone out.

H.I.I.T training is the opposite of that, it involves a much shorter workout, it’s much more challenging and it involves switching between moderate intensity and high intensity every few minutes or less, as we’ll discuss later on.  That constant change is much more challenging and it burns a hell of a lot more calories and fat in less time.

The main reason for doing this video, I was working in my gym the other day and a guy came up to me and he said, “Yiyie, is high intensity training bad for burning fat?”

Because what he had done is the day before he did regular cardio and the bike told him he’d burned, I think 401 calories in his workout.  And then the day he spoke to me, he said, “I’ve just done H.I.I.T training, but the bike says I’ve burned 420 calories, it’s not that much different, I thought H.I.I.T training was supposed to be much better for calorie burning because it was a lot harder workout?”

The benefits of H.I.I.T training aren’t the same as regular cardio, you see.  When you do regular cardio, you effectively, pretty much stop burning calories as soon as you get off the machine.  Now, with H.I.I.T training, you don’t, you get the main benefits after you finish your workout, okay?  It’s a phenomenon known as, as a fitness instructor for my rugby club, we call this EPOC.  I’ll give you the jargon name and I’ll give you a much easier name to remember in a minute. Because I don’t like going through the jargon side of things, tends to confuse people.

EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

I know, not very easy to remember, right?

A lot of people know this effect as the after-burn effect, you may have heard it called that.  Basically your body keeps on burning fat and calories at a higher rate than normal for about 16 hours, 16-24 hours after your workout.  So not only has he burned that much on the bike that he was on, but he carry on burning after the gym.  The machine won’t pick that up when he’s there, so don’t pay too much attention to the calorie counter on your machine when you’re doing high intensity training.

Everything about EPOC is explained clearly in this video below. So I suggest you take the time and watch it.

It’s much like when you do weights as well, you may feel that if you do weights workout, it’s actually good for weight loss, because you’re burning weight, now you’re burning fat after you leave the gym for up to 16 hours, it’s a similar type of effect.

A lot of people are confused with the after-burn effect. You know, they give it a cool name and then people just wonder what the hell it is, there’s so much hype around it. Basically if you’re doing high intensity interval training and you’re doing compound movements with your weights, like big squats, bench press, that sort of thing, you’re already reaping the benefits of the after-burn effect, possibly without even doing it, since it’s nothing too complex.

Okay, who should do high intensity interval training?

The majority of people, people who are just looking to lose fat more, I guess quicker, you know that quicker it’s not easier, it’s faster and more effective, as well as athletes looking to increase their performance.

Now this is the three proven states on H.I.I.T training which you apply today. There’s tons of different interval levels you can do, find what works for you, but I’m going to give you three proven ones which have the most research to back them up, and then you can start with these.

NUMBER ONE

The first one, if you’re an athlete looking to increase performance, one of the most research behind it is the Spartacus method. We’ll put a video on this post, watch that if you want a bit more in-depth, we’re going to fly through each level, so we can fit all level as well. The fitness trainer and scientist over in Japan in the ‘90’s did tests for a few weeks with a group of elite athletes, increased their fitness level which is their cardiovascular fitness, by 28%.  It’s huge.  Huge benefits from this, and it involves by far the hardest form of interval training out there. 40-45 seconds, maximum intensity for about 10 seconds, either rest or very low intensity.  Repeat that about eight times.  It will only give you a 6-7 minutes workout, but it will absolutely destroy you.  I would recommend not doing that method unless you are already in top condition, because it literally just destroys you after a workout.

NUMBER TWO

Sports specific interval training is the second type, if you’re training for a sport.  Not necessarily all sports, because you have to bear in mind what the sport actually is.  You know, for some sports, regular cardio is best, such as if you’re a long-distance runner, then having long, steady state cardio in your program will be a good idea.

But the guy who was talking to me at the gym, for example, is a rower, he rows at a club and he wanted to know a good interval program for a rowing machine, because he found it a bit dull, it’s not the same and he wanted so we had to go 250 meter sprints on the rower followed by 45 seconds pushups on the floor next to the rower.  The push and pull antagonist, it can work quite well, balanced his workout, but it actually killed him after five cycles, burned a lot more than he normally would.  And he carries after the workout, carries on, his metabolism’s higher so he gets fitter and leaner.

NUMBER THREE

The third type is normal cardio but with fast pace and push yourself to the maximum. Which in my opinion, the easiest to get to so we can provide this one, the majority of people wanted, just want to lose fat, they just want to burn fat faster, right?  So don’t just jump on a bike and do what your friend does, okay?  Because, you know, everyone’s different.

But to start off, the most backed-up researched H.I.I.T training studies came from where believe it or not, the best interval technique was 4 minutes of moderate intensity followed by 30 seconds maximum intensity. 4 minutes recovery time seems a lot, but by allowing that recovery time, it actually allowed them not really to fully recover, but to go maximum every single time. 30 seconds recovery, 30 seconds all out, because you don’t recover by the time you hit the next one.  And that actually brought on, I think they were doing 30-minute workouts for 6 weeks and they had a group of people doing steady state cardio next to them, and the steady state cardio guys were training for over twice as long, they went over an hour.  Yet the H.I.I.T group, only doing 30-minute workouts, actually burned twice as much fat.  So 4 minutes steady states, moderate intensity, 30 seconds all out, repeat that cycle about 6 times, you end up with roughly a 30-minute workout, there’s no need to go beyond 30 minutes with H.I.I.T training, after that, you get into that territory where you just exhausted yourself.

What You Should Do Now?

So if you’re just looking to start, pick one of those three, generally start with the third one, unless your already a pro, you know, sport specific state or if you’re already elite, you consider yourself to be, you’ll do the first one, but the third one is fantastic, it’s proven as well.

OR…

<< Click The Image To The Left For More Interval Training

Hopefully this has just helped to understand it a little bit more, I don’t know, because there’s a lot of it, a lot of confusion with H.I.I.T training, nobody really tells anyone any guidelines, that sort of thing.

I know we’re received a lot of feedback, people wanting to do that and do this, so by all means, go do it.  But upload a before and now picture, not after, because after implies that you’re finished.  Believe me, when you start getting the results that I see from some of you guys, you ain’t finished.  You’re going to carry on, set your goal and carry on.

So feel free to inspire other people and share videos, help them, help your friends, that’s why we do this.

You can go to our fanpage and share your videos with us.

All right, thanks a lot guys/gals, I really hope this post helps uncovering the high intensity interval training. Which is for me by far the best method out there. TRUST ME!

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