If you’re into fitness, you’ve probably heard of this amazing thing called HIIT. If there were any such thing as a “miracle exercise,” that you should be doing, HIIT is it.
HIIT (pronounced “hit”) is, first off, technically not an exercise–it’s a way of exercising. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. It’s a training protocol which has the athlete performing short, very intense bursts of activity, separated by intervals of less intense activity. It’s an alternative to the classic steady-state cardio, where we get on a treadmill or a bike or whatnot, and do a longer session of activity at a relatively steady pace.
HIIT is quite a popular training method these days. If we look into why it is so popular, we might be inclined to look at how studies have shown that HIIT has much more substantial benefits than traditional cardio training. You can achieve significant aerobic adaptations in as few as 3 weeks of HIIT. Growth hormones, cortisol, and most significantly catecholamines, which are believed to play an important role in metabolizing stored fat, are all more elevated after HIIT than they are after steady-state cardio training. In almost all areas of performance: aerobic fitness, endurance, fat loss, muscle tone, even things like insulin resistance; HIIT has shown to be superior to traditional cardio training.
But that’s not why it’s popular.
That’s not how people work. HIIT is not popular because of the science–that certainly helps, but if that were true, almost every activity in the world would be more popular than drinking beer and eating chips. HIIT is popular because it’s supposed to give better results in less time. It’s popular because when people hear this, they hear “less time” and think “less work.”
It’s popular because most everybody is doing it wrong.
You see, people know what HIIT stands for, but conveniently translate “high intensity” into “an activity that seems difficult.” However, “high intensity” is much less subjective than that. It refers specifically to a certain level of exertion, usually in the range of 90% of your max, which means HIIT is supposed to thoroughly kick your ass in just a few minutes.
If you’ve been doing HIIT, and finishing your sessions cheerfully thinking “gee that was so much better than 30 minutes of jogging!” and not something along the lines of “gaaahhhhhhhh,” then there is an enormous chance that you’re not doing HIIT, you’re just doing IT.
There is nothing especially wrong with this. I love interval training. Actually, the concept of HIIT introduced me to the general concept of interval training, which I now use extensively. It is an amazing way to structure a workout, psychologically and physically. If trying to do HIIT has gotten you into a gym doing interval training, that’s great! My training sessions, for myself and clients, are now primarily based on timed intervals of exercise and rest. We stay on track and get a lot of work done. Rather than doing the traditional set of a number of reps, I try to ensure proper time under tension by doing an exercise for a certain amount of time. Intervals also offer the psychological aspect of breaking the session up into what seem like much more manageable smaller segments. I highly encourage everyone to install a simple interval timer on their mobile device and start playing around with the structure it can add to your workouts.
That being said, most of the interval training that I do, and that I have clients do, I would not call HIIT, by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t really want to make my clients do HIIT very often. First, because we have at least 30 minutes of training time, oftentimes a whole hour, and I like to make the most of that time. But most importantly, I don’t want to cultivate a sense of dread in my clients when they think of training with me.
Because HIIT sucks.
Some of the studies I’ve read touch upon this concept, but they use more detached, clinical sounding language, like “extreme discomfiture.” As someone who has done actual HIIT workouts, and who can read between the lines, allow me to translate that into “it extremely sucks ass and you will be extremely hating life.”
mirror selfie I took after a HIIT workout
Incorporating HIIT into a fitness program must be done with caution. For the average, overweight, out-of-shape person, who already equates exercise with unpleasantness, HIIT is not likely to leave them thinking, “that wasn’t so bad!” HIIT often turns out to be the kind of thing where you suddenly have a whole lot of other things on your schedule that are much more important than your next exercise session. It’s the kind of thing you find excuses to skip, without even realizing that’s what you’re doing.
Don’t get me wrong, besides how terrible it is, HIIT is great. When done properly, it truly does offer amazing benefits. If you want to do HIIT, I highly encourage you try it. Proceed with caution. Respect your limits. You’ve probably heard or seen the phrase “Check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program,” and most people think “yeah, yeah, whatever,” but this is especially important for HIIT, as it is enormously taxing and pushes you right to the edge of your capabilities. But if you can do it, it’s totally worth it.
How to Do a HIIT Workout:
There’s usually not a whole lot of variety in a true HIIT workout, because there aren’t many exercises which offer the level of intensity that HIIT requires. In all the studies I’ve found so far, a HIIT workout involves all-out sprinting on a stationary bike. I assume this is because most treadmills don’t offer a fast enough change in speed, and a stationary bike is safer at the speeds and levels of exertion they’re going for. Another common method, among the rest of us who aren’t scientists, is to do explosive, full body exercises, like squat jumps, jumping lunges, or burpees. These kinds of exercises can become quite difficult to do with adequate power after just a couple of rounds, however, and while we could just assume the intensity of the exertion means the benefits would be similar, these methods have not been used in the studies which have observed the numerous benefits of HIIT.
To keep things simple as we get started, let’s try to stick with cycling on a stationary bike. At my gym, we have a few different kinds of bikes, but for HIIT, I usually have clients use the bikes the spin class uses, rather than the old recumbent bikes or the upright bikes with the big fat comfy seats and TVs. If you really want to try HIIT at home and don’t have access to a stationary bike, go ahead and try intervals of squat jumps or jump lunges, alternating with marching in place for the lower intensity interval. Or try maximum speed high-knee marching, get your arms pumping like crazy, too, alternating with regular marching in place. As you can probably guess, this kind of workout is not exactly ideal for those of us who have downstairs neighbors.
Whatever method you try, you’ll want to download and install an interval timer on your smartphone. If you don’t have a smartphone, there are actual interval timers available to buy at a much lower price point than a smartphone. Interval timers make setting repetitive timed intervals very easy. There are many interval timer apps to choose from, and most of them will work just fine for the basic needs of a HIIT workout. I have an Android phone and I’ve used “A HIIT Timer” for years now. Most allow you to set up multiple different interval workouts and save them with descriptive names. I like to set my workouts up with the “rest” interval first, so that when I reach the final round I get the satisfaction of finishing strong, but you can set things up however you like.
Each round usually consists of two intervals: a maximum intensity interval, and a lower intensity interval. Most of the examples I’ve seen have a shorter high intensity round and a longer low intensity round, but as you can see below, the Tabata format is one example that doesn’t follow this format. During the sprint, stand up on the pedals, increase the resistance a bit, and immediately go all out as hard as you can until the timer tells you to stop. But don’t actually stop — sit down and pedal at a more relaxed pace. Repeat until the workout is finished. Simple, yet highly effective.
Some ideas for intervals (high intensity interval listed first):
8s/12s x 60 rounds –> 20 minutes total (8 minutes sprinting)
8s/22s x 30 rounds –> 15 minutes total (4 minutes sprinting)
10s/50s x 10 rounds –> 10 minutes total (1.7 minutes sprinting)
6s/30s x 10 rounds –> 6 minutes total (1 minute sprinting)
Tabata style (note: higher intensity is the longer interval):
20s/10s x 8 rounds –> 4 minutes total (2.7 minutes sprinting)
I’ve also included all these interval formats in a workout collection simply titled “HIIT” on an exercise app called “Workout Trainer” made by Skimble. I started using this app years ago when I was still a beginner in my fitness journey and I still find it useful for sharing workouts I’ve created. You don’t have to pay, as you don’t need a pro membership, just install the app and you’re good to go.
Do one of these workouts one to three times a week, and see how you like it (or how you don’t like it). Pay close attention to how you are feeling over time. One of the only drawbacks I’ve read about HIIT, besides its general unpleasantness, is the fact that it can take a toll on your immune system. As with any workout program, proper rest is extremely important. Be careful not to overtrain, and avoid doing HIIT if you’re under the weather or otherwise fatigued. Try incorporating some HIIT into your fitness regimen for a few weeks, then take a month or two off. Keep doing your other workouts, of course. You can cycle it back in every few months for variety.
Even though the science tells us HIIT produces amazing results, programming HIIT into your regimen is certainly not required. Slow and steady is nothing to be ashamed of. “No pain, no gain” is so oversimplified it’s basically a fitness myth. Choosing a path of smaller, incremental changes can actually be much more effective for your health, as it is more sustainable over time compared to doing something you find unpleasant, and that’s not even considering the likelihood of injury that comes with high intensity exercises. A few sessions of HIIT might offer more fitness adaptations than a few leisurely hikes in the woods, but if you enjoy one of those activities regularly for years, and the other has you counting the days until you’re off the hook and can stop showing up, well, the long term difference is far superior.
If you’ve been considering giving HIIT a shot, my goal here is certainly not to discourage, but rather to help you figure out if it’s right for you, where to start, and that you do so with a proper level of respect, and therefore caution, for what you’re getting yourself into. Or, if you have been doing a lot of HIIT lately, and wondering why you haven’t been seeing the kind of results you’ve been led to expect, perhaps I’ve offered a couple of clues as to why. As with a lot of “straight talk” in fitness, the moral ends up being that if something seems to good to be true, it most often is. But while HIIT may not be the scientifically engineered easy substitute for cardio that the hype might make it out to be, the truth is, if you want to do the work, and you want to see the biggest payoff with the best results for the time and energy you invest, HIIT is it.
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