Sunday, July 10, 2011

Short on Time? HIIT your workout.


A common problem, or excuse, with the current obesity epidemic in relation to exercise is people don’t have the time. If people could pull themselves away from the activities soaking up their time, the newest episode of American Idol comes to mind, for just 30 minutes three times a week, people would find amazing results. There has been much debate as to the nature of endurance training versus high intensity interval training (HIIT), but the results from HIIT is ideally the best bang for the buck for most of America. An early study to show the benefits of HIIT training showed value in higher effort workouts which lead to shorter time involvement but an increase in fat loss. “At the conclusion of the study, the HIIT group lost over 3 times as much subcutaneous fat as the ET group despite expending less than half as many calories”. Though this study has been a heated topic of debate, it is hard to deny the results.

With many of the studies provided for HIIT showing benefits for people who frequently exercise, a new study showed the benefits of this style of training for the more typical sedentary, middle-aged lifestyle. Though HIIT does stand for high intensity, sedentary test subjects showed very beneficial results without working at a max load for heart rate. With 100% max efforts being used in most studies, it was not relatable to the standard person as people who do not exercise frequently would struggle with pushing their body to that limit. In a March 2011 study, an 80-95% max load was used in determining benefits for a more sedentary lifestyle. With this group having a higher risk of inactivity-related disorders, a mild time investment of an hour and a half a week proved beneficial in fat loss and muscle oxidative capacity.

Another benefit shown from this study was a 35% increase in insulin sensitivity. The conclusion of the more recent study showed “constant-load, low-volume HIT may be a practical, time-efficient strategy to induce metabolic adaptations that reduce the risk for inactivity-related disorders in previously sedentary middle-aged adults”. With our country at an unbelievable risk as two-thirds of the nation are obese or overweight, suffering from conditions due to this have continued to rise and a seemingly unaccountable nature of most, our country is in extreme danger of practically killing ourselves with excuses. People must be held accountable for allowing themselves to succumb to habits associated with being overweight and create time, as little as 30 minutes, to help themselves. Though HIIT training is not the overall answer to our obesity problems, time efficiency becomes important for many and using HIIT as a simple protocol to assist has exponential benefits no matter what body type and issues you may have.

References:
http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21448086
http://sweatscience.com/high-intensity-interval-training-improves-insulin-sensitivity/
Image:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMPwQn8BSAy4x0w6rPAdjTe4TyZKE0dJ8i-3euxVxNtYDoknlXLeQT1KGHY6_J7HoekyyJ6kcx753TO4KdanCAnTTPn2wrJmWFQt7TXDcEgxPCzgpAEbeM85sAEwD1VZZJRxr-3NDEuMpE/s320/HIIT_Feat.jpg

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