HIIT

How to Turn Your Daily Walk into a High Intensity Exercise

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High intensity interval training (HIIT) has been shown to be one of the best forms of exercise in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. In fact, the evidence shows that by focusing on endurance-type exercises, such as jogging on a treadmill, you actually forgo many of the most profound benefits of exercise.

The problem is that many are so out of shape and/or overweight, the idea of high intensity interval exercises can seem too daunting to even attempt. The elderly may also shy away from high intensity exercises, for fear of injuring themselves.

For those of you who are aware of the benefits of HIIT but haven’t been able to implement it for one reason or another, findings from a Japanese study may offer hope. Walking tends to be among the easiest exercises to perform, no matter what your age or fitness level, and walking can also be turned into an effective high intensity exercise.

The Benefits of a High Intensity Walking Program

For the last decade, Dr. Hiroshi Nose and colleagues at the Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine in Matsumoto, Japan, have developed walking programs for the elderly.

In light of the benefits associated with HIIT, Dr. Nose created a regimen of fast walking and gentle strolling, to see if this kind of program might provide greater fitness benefits than walking at a steady pace.

The program consisted of repeated intervals of three minutes of fast walking, aiming for an exertion level of about six or seven on a scale of one to 10, followed by three minutes of slow strolling. The results turned out to be very promising. As reported by the New York Times:

“In their original experiment, the results of which were published in 2007, walkers between the ages of 44 and 78 completed five sets of intervals, for a total of 30 minutes of walking at least three times a week. 

A separate group of older volunteers walked at a continuous, moderate pace, equivalent to about a 4 on the same exertion scale. 

After five months, the fitness and health of the older, moderate group had barely improved. The interval walkers, however, significantly improved aerobic fitness, leg strength and blood-pressure readings.”

In December 2014, the team published a follow-up report on the participants in this earlier research, noting that 70 percent of the participants were still adhering to the walking program two years after the study ended, and the health benefits remained stable.

Everyone Can Benefit from Walking More Each Day

This strategy can be an excellent entry into higher intensity training, regardless of your age and fitness level. The Japanese researchers recommend doing this “moderately-intense” interval walking for about 10 minutes three times a day, three days per week.

As you’ve probably heard by now, chronic sitting is the new smoking, raising your risk of an early death from poor health independently of your fitness and other lifestyle habits.

In fact, the medical literature now contains over 10,000 studies showing that frequent, prolonged sitting—at work, commuting, and watching TV at night—significantly impacts your cardiovascular and metabolic function.

According to Dr. James Levine, co-director of Obesity Solutions at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and Arizona State University, you need at least 10 minutes of movement for every hour you sit down.

My personal recommendation is to limit sitting to less than three hours a day, and to make it a point to walk more every day. I suggest aiming for 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day, and a fitness tracker can be a very helpful tool to monitor your progress and ensure you’re hitting your mark.

Keep in mind that this walking is in addition to your regular fitness regimen, not in lieu of it. Tracking your steps can also show you how simple and seemingly minor changes to the way you move around at work can add up. For example, you can:

  • Walk across the hall to talk to a coworker instead of sending an email
  • Take the stairs instead of the elevator
  • Park your car further away from the entrance
  • Take a longer, roundabout way to your desk

If you’ve taken such advice to heart and are getting more walking into your day, consider switching up the pace at regular intervals as suggested in the featured study, interspersing bouts of speed walking followed by more casual strolling.

In study after study we find that it is this intermittent high and low intensity that appears to produce the most significant results. So simply by exerting yourself intermittently when walking, you can dramatically increase the return of your effort without spending any extra time on it.

The Benefits of Lunch Hour Walking

Taking a walk during your lunch hour can also have a significant impact on your mood and help reduce work-related stresses, according to other recent research. To assess how walking might affect mood and work-related stress in the immediate term, 56 sedentary office workers were asked to walk for 30 minutes during their lunch break, three times per week. As reported by the New York Times:

“The volunteers completed a series of baseline health and fitness and mood tests at the outset of the experiment, revealing that they all were out of shape but otherwise generally healthy physically and emotionally. Dr. Thogersen-Ntoumani and her colleagues then randomly divided the volunteers into two groups, one of which was to begin a simple, 10-week walking program right away, while the other group would wait and start their walking program 10 weeks later, serving, in the meantime, as a control group.”

While walking is often underestimated, studies show you can reap significant health benefits from it.

Mood, stress level, enthusiasm, workload and other emotional components were assessed via a smart phone app, which included questions about how they felt in that moment. This allowed them to ascertain the participants’ moods directly before and after their walk. The final analysis showed a clear difference in reported mood on days when they walked versus days when they didn’t.  As noted in the featured article:

“On the afternoons after a lunchtime stroll, walkers said they felt considerably more enthusiastic, less tense, and generally more relaxed and able to cope than on afternoons when they hadn’t walked and even compared with their own moods from a morning before a walk. 

Although the authors did not directly measure workplace productivity in their study, ‘there is now quite strong research evidence that feeling more positive and enthusiastic at work is very important to productivity,’ Dr. Thogersen-Ntoumani said. ‘So we would expect that people who walked at lunchtime would be more productive.’ As a pleasant, additional outcome, all of the volunteers showed gains in their aerobic fitness and other measures of health at the completion of their 10 weeks of walking.”

Walking Eases Depression

Similar results were found in a recent Australian study, in which walking was found to improve quality of life for depressed middle-aged women. Those who averaged at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise or just over 3.25 hours of walking each week reported feeling more energized and more social at their three-year follow up.  Not surprisingly, they also reported less pain and greater fitness.

And, the more they exercised, the greater their improvements—particularly with respect to their psychological wellbeing. That said, even small amounts of exercise was beneficial. According to study author Kristiann Heesch: “The good news is that while the most benefits require 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 200 minutes of walking, even smaller amounts… can improve well-being.”

Walking Is Good Medicine

Many researchers are now starting to reemphasize the importance of walking. According to Katy Bowman, a scientist and author of the book: Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health through Natural Movement:

 “Walking is a superfood. It’s the defining movement of a human. It’s a lot easier to get movement than it is to get exercise.  Actively sedentary is a new category of people who are fit for one hour but sitting around the rest of the day. You can’t offset 10 hours of stillness with one hour of exercise.”

I believe high intensity exercises are an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but considering the fact that more than half of American men, and 60 percent of American women, never engage in any vigorous physical activity lasting more than 10 minutes per week,9 it’s clear that most people need to begin by simply getting more non-exercise movement into their daily routine. The elderly and those struggling with chronic disease that prevents them from engaging in more strenuous fitness regimens would also do well to consider moving around more.

While walking is often underestimated, studies show you can reap significant health benefits from it. In addition to those already mentioned, a 2014 study found that walking for two miles a day or more can cut your chances of hospitalization from a severe episode of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by about half. Another study published in 2013 found that daily walking reduced the risk of stroke in men over the age of 60. Walking for at least an hour or two could cut a man’s stroke risk by as much as one-third, and it didn’t matter how brisk the pace was. Taking a three-hour long walk each day slashed the risk by two-thirds. I personally walk about 90 minutes most every day, covering about 55 miles a week.

Daily Walking Is a Foundational Part of a Healthy Lifestyle

Both research and experience confirm that walking is powerful medicine, and you can make it even more powerful by incorporating principles of high intensity interval training. Simply alternating between speed-walking and slow strolling will allow you to maximize your rewards. As noted earlier, I believe aiming for 7,000 to 10,000 steps a day might be ideal for most people, and this is over and above your regular exercise program. If you’re currently not doing anything in terms of fitness, please do consider getting more walking into your day. Chances are you’ll start feeling more energized and less stressed, which may spur you on to a more regimented fitness program.

On a side note, if you live near the beach or have access to grassy areas, consider yourself extra lucky and take full advantage of it. Walking barefoot on the sand or grass has additional benefits that go beyond that of walking, as this allows your body to absorb free electrons from the Earth through the soles of your feet. These electrons have powerful antioxidant effects that can protect your body from inflammation and its many well-documented health consequences. For example, one scientific review published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health concluded that so-called grounding (walking barefoot on the earth) could improve a number of health conditions

Mom of 3 Dies After Finishing Pennsylvania HalfMarathon

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In a tragic turn of events at what was supposed to be an exciting sports competition, a young mother collapsed and died after running a half-marathon in Pennsylvania. According to Fox News, an autopsy is pending.

From improved insulin sensitivity to better aerobic ability and fat-burning capabilities, running is a fitness sport that’s normally healthy. In fact, runners have a significantly reduced risk of death from all causes and from cardiovascular events compared to non-runners, so it’s especially tragic when something like this woman’s death happens in connection with this sport.

And while news reports said she had been training for the event, it’s important to note that too much of a good thing sometimes can actually damage your heart — especially when you’re engaged in prolonged exercise such as high-endurance training, which puts extraordinary stress on your heart. The fact is vigorous exercise performed during a marathon raises your cardiac risk seven-fold!

Of course we won’t know whether something like this is what triggered this woman’s death until autopsy reports come back, but in the meantime, if you’re interested in beginning a vigorous exercise program, why not try short, intense workouts called high-intensity interval training (HIIT)? These quick workouts — as in seven minutes or less — can yield greater fitness benefits in less time compared to longer, low- or moderate-intensity workouts.

They also can be varied and intensified as you grow stronger. The good thing about HIIT is that you can tweak it to your needs, from working out at a slightly lower intensity to a level of intensity that best fits you.

Source:mercola.com

High-Intensity Interval Training Could Be Your Best Bet for Keeping Your Cells Young

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Recharge your cells.

 

High-intensity interval training (HIIT), where short bursts of activity are mixed with rest periods, is your best pick when it comes to using exercise to combat the cellular signs of ageing, according to new research.

In the study, HIIT beat weight training for boosting your cells’ mitochondrialactivity – the chemical reactions that release energy and fuels cell growth. This activity usually declines with age, but HIIT was shown to actually reverse it in some cases.

 That could help us understand more about limiting disabilities and diseases such as diabetes as people get older, say researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, even if it can’t help you live forever just yet.

And although the study only involved a relatively small sample size of 72 volunteers, the team says the results are impressive enough to be significant.

“These things we are seeing cannot be done by any medicine,” says one of the researchers, Sreekumaran Nair.

“Based on everything we know, there’s no substitute for these exercise programs when it comes to delaying the ageing process.”

Researchers enlisted the help of 36 men and 36 women split across two age groups; a ‘young’ group aged 18 to 30, and an ‘old’ group aged 65 to 80.

These volunteers were put into three mixed-age groups: one group did high-intensity interval training on bikes; one group did weight training; and one group did a combination of the two, for a period of 12 weeks.

 The HIIT program involved three days a week of cycling, with high-intensity spells of pedalling split up by less intensive periods, plus two days a week of treadmill work.

Muscle cell make-up, muscle mass, and insulin sensitivity were then analysed and compared with a control group that did no exercise at all.

At the molecular level, HIIT produced the biggest benefits, with the younger participants on HIIT showing a 49 percent increase in mitochondrial capacity, and the older participants on HIIT reaching a 69 increase on average.

The cells of the older volunteers started generating energy at a rate comparable to cells from much younger bodies, in other words.

Mitochondria act like energy factories for our cells, converting glucose into power for our bodies at the lowest levels, but as we get older this process starts to slow down. That leads to the cell damage and dysfunction we associate with ageing.

While scientists still don’t fully understand how this all works, kickstarting more mitochondrial activity through exercise could be one way of keeping many of the signs of ageing at bay.

And while it’s been well-established that exercise is good for the body, scientists are still figuring out the changes it makes at the molecular level.

What’s more, the researchers say the regeneration of muscle protein seen in this study could also be replicated in the heart and brain, two other areas of the body where cells wear out more easily as we get older.

HIIT improved insulin sensitivity levels too, which reduces the risk of diabetes, though it wasn’t as effective as weight training at building up muscle mass. As you might expect, any kind of exercise was shown to be better than doing nothing at all.

“If people have to pick one exercise, I would recommend high-intensity interval training, but I think it would be more beneficial if they could do three to four days of interval training and then a couple days of strength training,” says Nair.

This Interval Training Infographic Helps You Pick the Right Workout.

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By now you may have heard the good news: exercising at very high intensity interspersed with periods of moderate rest, a program known as high-intensity interval training (HIIT), is one of the best ways to get in shape.

That’s good news because the workouts are considerably shorter than you’re probably used to and involve as little as four minutes of intense activity combined with rest for a total workout of only around 20 minutes.

hiit

Because HIIT is so intense, you should only do it two to three times a week, max, making it a workout that even the most time-crunched individuals can fit in their schedules.

Interval Training 101

If you’re wondering what HIIT is all about, Greatist has summed it up nicely in the interval training infographic that follows.1 From explaining the benefits and why it works to how to perform a variety of different HIIT workouts, this is the place to start if you want to give HIIT a try.

Research Overwhelmingly Supports HIIT

Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise.

Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”

One study published in the Journal of Obesity2 reported that 12 weeks of HIIT not only can result in significant reductions in total abdominal, trunk, and visceral fat, but also can give you significant increases in fat-free mass and aerobic power.

Other research published in the journal Cell Metabolism3 showed that when healthy but inactive people exercise intensely, even if the exercise is brief, it produces an immediate measurable change in their DNA.

Several of the genes affected by an acute bout of exercise are genes involved in fat metabolism. Specifically, the study suggested that when you exercise your body almost immediately experiences genetic activation that increases the production of fat-busting (lipolytic) enzymes.

Yet another study found that unfit but otherwise healthy middle-aged adults were able to improve their insulin sensitivity and blood sugar regulation after just two weeks of interval training (three sessions per week).4 A follow-up study also found that interval training positively impacted insulin sensitivity. In fact, the study involved people with full-blown type 2 diabetes, and just ONE interval training session was able to improve blood sugar regulation for the next 24 hours!5

Which HIIT Workout Is Right for You?

There are a large number of variations when it comes to HIIT. The infographic outlines three of them, including the Tabata Method, which calls for just 20 seconds of all-out drop-dead effort, followed by a mere 10 seconds of rest. This intense cycle is repeated eight times.

When the Tabata Method was performed four times per week for six weeks, participants in one experiment increased their anaerobic capacity by 28 percent, and their VO2 max (an indicator of cardiovascular health) and maximal aerobic power by 15 percent. This is in contrast to the control group, who performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week. These participants improved their VO2 max by just 10 percent, and their regimen had no effect on their anaerobic capacity.6

As the infographic explained, this protocol is likely best for those who are extremely fit have very little time. I have not even attempted this protocol as I know how hard Peak Fitness is, which has a 90-second recovery. I shudder to think how painful the Tabata protocol is with only 10 seconds to recover… that said, if you’re looking for an extreme intensity workout, this may be it. For those of you just starting out with HIIT, you may want to try Peak Fitness first.

For the past couple of years, I’ve encouraged the use of high-intensity interval training as a key strategy for improving your health, boosting weight and fat loss, promoting HGH production, and improving strength and stamina. I’ve been doing it myself since April 2010 after meeting fitness expert Phil Campbell (author of Ready Set Go), so I can also vouch for its effectiveness from personal experience.

The HIIT approach I personally prefer and recommend is the Peak Fitness method of 30 seconds of maximum effort followed by 90 seconds of recuperation. I personally modified the number of repetitions from 8 to 6 this year, as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all 8. So by listening to my body and cutting it back to 6 reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go full out. Plus, I no longer dread doing them.

Another tweak I made is to incorporate Butyeko breathing into the workout, which means I do most of the workout by only breathing through my nose. This raises the challenge to another level. I will discuss more of the benefits of this in a future article, as I do believe it has many benefits. I then finish my Peak Fitness workout with Power Plate stretches, 10 pull ups, 10 dips and 20 inverted pushups, and call it a day.

When you’re first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of Peak Fitness. That’s okay! As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight. And if six is what your body is telling you, then stop there. If you have a history of heart disease or any medical concern please get clearance from your health care professional to start this. Most people of average fitness will be able to do it though; it is only a matter of how much time it will take you to build up to the full 8 reps, depending on your level of intensity. For a demonstration using an elliptical machine, please see the video above. Here are the core principles:

  • Warm up for three minutes
  • Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate
  • Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
  • Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times. (When you’re first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight during your 20-minute session)
  • Cool down for a few minutes afterward by cutting down your intensity by 50-80 percent

Rounding Out Your Exercise Program

In most cases, HIIT workouts should only be done two or three times a week. But that doesn’t mean you should take all the other days off. Switching up your workouts will ensure your muscles continue to be challenged and prevent plateaus in your fitness growth. You want to avoid overtaxing any one area of your body, too, and having a varied workout program helps you to do this naturally. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program on days when you’re not doing HIIT:

  • Strength Training: If you want, you can increase the intensity by slowing it down. You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.

For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of HIIT, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.

  • Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.

Exercise programs like Pilates, yoga, and Foundation Training are great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

  • Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is Active Isolated Stretching (AIS) developed by Aaron Mattes. With AIS, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.
  • Non-Exercise Activity: One of the newest recommendations I have is based on information from NASA scientist Dr. Joan Vernikos, who I recently interviewed: simply set a timer when you are sitting and stand up every 10 minutes. I even modify this further by doing jump squats at times in addition to standing up. This will help counteract the dangerous consequences of excessive sitting.

You can prevent, and to a great degree, delay the damage associated with a large portion of biological aging, especially the most crippling, which is pain with movement and loss of flexibility that you had as a youth. To do so, FIRST you need to make sure you’re engaging in more or less perpetual non-exercise movement, as this is an independent risk factor. You then want to add structured exercise on top of that to reap all the benefits associated with exercise.

Going to the gym a few times a week for an hour simply isn’t going to counteract hours upon hours of chronic uninterrupted sitting, which essentially mimics a microgravity situation, i.e. you’re not exerting your body against gravity. Only frequent non-exercise movement will do that. The key point is to move and shift position often, when you’re sitting down. Meaning, you want to interrupt your sitting as often as possible.

Source: mercola.com

 

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout.

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  • Exercise is a key factor of optimal health; it’s particularly important for controlling your blood sugar and normalizing your insulin levels. When done correctly, exercise can oftentimes act as a substitute for some of the most common drugs used today for things like diabetes, heart disease and depression
  • Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise
  • Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, Peak Fitness exercises also provide health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone”
  • A recent article by the Human Performance Institute shows how you can fulfill the requirements for a high intensity exercise using nothing more than your own body weight, a chair, and a wall
    • Exercise is a key factor of optimal health; it’s particularly important for controlling your blood sugar and normalizing your insulin levels. I often recommend viewing exercise as a drug that needs to be properly prescribed and “taken” at a proper dosage.
    • When done correctly, exercise can oftentimes act as a substitute for some of the most common drugs used today for things like diabetes, heart disease and depression.

      All of these conditions will improve with exercise and the help of an experienced natural health care clinician. High intensity interval training (HIIT), which is a core component of my Peak Fitness program, is key for reaping optimal results from exercise.

    • There are many versions of HIIT, but the core premise involves maximum exertion followed by a quick rest period for a set of intervals.
    • My Peak Fitness routine uses a set of eight 30-second sprints, each followed by 90 seconds of recovery, as taught by Phil Campbell who is a pioneer in this field. Also, while I typically recommend using an elliptical machine or recumbent bike, you can just as easily perform a high intensity routine without any equipment at all.
    • A recent article in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal1 shows how you can fulfill the requirements for a high intensity exercise using nothing more than your own body weight, a chair, and a wall.
    • Best of all, this science-backed routine only requires a seven minute investment, as the program calls for as little as 10- to 15-seconds of rest between each 30-second exercise, which should be performed in rapid succession.
    • As reported by the New York Times2:
    • “’There’s very good evidence that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,’ says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.”
    • The health benefits of high intensity interval training are well-established at this point, and include:

·         The Scientific 7-Minute Workout

Significantly improving your insulin sensitivity, especially if you’re on a low-processed food-, low-sugar/low-grain diet Optimizing your cholesterol ratios, when combined with a proper diet Boosting fat metabolism and optimizing your body fat percentage (as a result of improved conservation of sugar and glycogen in your muscles)
Virtually eliminating type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure Naturally boosting your levels of human growth hormone (HGH) Increasing your aerobic capacity
  • One of the added boons of this 7-minute program is that since you don’t need any equipment, you can easily take this routine with you when traveling. You’d be hard-pressed to find a hotel room that doesn’t at least have a chair in it. When done at the appropriate intensity, which should hover around 8 on a scale of 1-10, the following 12 exercises, which are outlined in the report, equate to doing a long run and a weight-training session.
  • The exercises are ideally done in the following order, as this allows for opposing muscle groups to alternate between resting and working in each subsequent exercise.

Contraindications

I believe most people can perform high intensity exercises, provided you listen to your body and work out according to your current level of fitness and ability. I personally modified the Peak 8 to a Peak 6 this year as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all eight repetitions. So by listening to my body and cutting it back to six reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go all out. That said, the authors stress that there are some contraindications for their program:

“Because of the elevated demand for exercise intensity in high intensity circuit training protocols, caution should be taken when prescribing this protocol to individuals who are overweight/obese, detrained, previously injured, or elderly or for individuals with comorbidities.

For individuals with hypertension or heart disease, the isometric exercises (wall sit, plank, and side plank) are not recommended. The isometric exercises can be substituted with dynamic exercises.

For all individuals, the Valsalva maneuver should be avoided, particularly for the isometric exercises. Proper execution requires a willing and able participant who can handle a great degree of discomfort for a relatively short duration. It is also essential that participants in an HICT understand proper exercise form and technique. As with all exercise programs, prior medical clearance from a physician is recommended.”

I firmly believe that most people would benefit from high intensity exercises but the key is to start very slowly if you have any of the risk factors listed above. You might actually require several months to work up to a high intensity level. But as long as you start at a safe level and continue to push yourself to progressively higher levels, you will eventually reach a level of intensity that will provide the benefits.

Remember, while your body needs regular amounts of stress like exercise to stay healthy, if you give it more than you can handle your health can actually deteriorate. So it’s crucial to listen to your body and integrate the feedback into your exercise intensity and frequency. When you work out, it is wise to really push as hard as you possibly can a few times a week, but you do need to wisely gauge your body’s tolerance to this stress.

Why High Intensity Interval Training May Be Ideal for Most

Contrary to popular belief, extended extreme cardio, such as marathon running, actually sets in motion inflammatory mechanisms that damage your heart. So while your heart is indeed designed to work very hard, and will be strengthened from doing so, it’s only designed to do so intermittently, and for short periods—not for an hour or more at a time. This is the natural body mechanics you tap into when you perform HIIT.

Repeatedly and consistently overwhelming your heart by long distance marathon running, for example, can actually prematurely age your heart and make you more vulnerable to irregular heart rhythm. This is why you sometimes hear of seasoned endurance athletes dropping dead from cardiac arrest during a race. I ran long distance for over four decades. So please learn from my experience and don’t make the same mistake I did.

Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise. Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”

What Makes HIIT so Effective?

Your body has three types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast twitch muscles. Slow twitch muscles are the red muscles, which are activated by traditional strength training and cardio exercises. The latter two (fast and super-fast) are white muscle fibers, and these are only activated during high intensity interval exercises or sprints. The benefit of activating these fibers is that they will produce therapeutic levels of growth hormone, which many athletes spend over a $1,000 a month to inject themselves with. So there is no need to pay the money or take the risks when your body can produce growth hormone naturally through high intensity exercises.

Getting cardiovascular benefits requires working all three types of muscle fibers and their associated energy systems — and thiscannot be done with traditional cardio, which only activates your red, slow twitch muscles. If your fitness routine doesn’t work your white muscle, you aren’t really working your heart in the most beneficial way. The reason for this is because your heart has two different metabolic processes:

  • The aerobic, which requires oxygen for fuel, and
  • The anaerobic, which does not require any oxygen

Traditional strength training and cardio exercises work primarily the aerobic process, while high intensity interval exercises work both your aerobic AND your anaerobic processes, which is what you need for optimal cardiovascular benefit. This is why you may not see the results you desire even when you’re spending an hour on the treadmill several times a week. So when it comes to high intensity exercises, less really is more...

For Optimal Health, Add Variety to Your Exercise Program

In addition to doing HIIT a couple of times a week, it’s wise to alternate a wide variety of exercises in order to truly optimize your health and avoid hitting a plateau. As a general rule, as soon as an exercise becomes easy to complete, you need to increase the intensity and/or try another exercise to keep challenging your body. I recommend incorporating the following types of exercise into your program on days when you’re not doing high intensity anaerobic training:

  • Strength Training: If you want, you can increase the intensity by slowing it down. You need enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild.

For more information about using super slow weight training as a form of high-intensity interval exercise, please see my interview with Dr. Doug McGuff.

  • Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.

Exercise programs like Pilates, yoga, and Foundation Training are great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

  • Stretching: My favorite type of stretching is Active Isolated Stretching (AIS) developed by Aaron Mattes. With AIS, you hold each stretch for only two seconds, which works with your body’s natural physiological makeup to improve circulation and increase the elasticity of muscle joints. This technique also allows your body to repair itself and prepare for daily activity. You can also use devices like the Power Plate to help you stretch.

Source: .mercola.com

Japanese Doctor Confirms Health Benefits of Working Out Less, But More Intensely.

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Story at-a-glance

  • High-intensity interval training (HIIT) gives a natural boost to human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor. HIIT has also been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity, boost fat loss, and increase muscle growth
  • According to Japanese research, a mere four minutes of exercise performed at extreme intensity, four times a week, can improve your anaerobic capacity by 28 percent, and your VO2 max and maximal aerobic power by 15 percent in as little as six weeks
  • Study participants who performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week only improved VO2 max by 10 percent, and their regimen had no effect on their anaerobic capacity after six weeks
  • Previous research showed that just three minutes of HIIT per week for four weeks improved participants’ insulin sensitivity by an average of 24 percent

A little over three years ago, I was introduced to high intensity interval training, commonly referred to as HIIT, when I met Phil Campbell at a fitness camp in Mexico. I refer to it as Peak Fitness Training.

Since then, researchers have repeatedly confirmed the superior health benefits of HIIT compared to traditional and typically performed aerobic workouts.

For example, high-intensity interval-type training gives a natural boost to human growth hormone (HGH) production—which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor—and has been shown to significantly improve insulin sensitivity, boost fat loss, and increase muscle growth.

Anaerobic HIIT can be performed on a recumbent bike or an elliptical machine, or sprinting outdoors (with proper guidelines to avoid injury).

While there are a large number of variations, the HIIT routine I recommend involves going all out for 30 seconds and then resting for 90 seconds between sprints. Total workout is typically 8 repetitions. In all, you’ll be done in about 20 minutes, and you only need to perform HIIT two or three times a week.

But researchers such as Dr. Izumi Tabata have shown that even shorter workouts can work, as long as the intensity is high enough.1

The video above shows a modified high intensity workout from the DVD Mash Up Conditioning. It demonstrates 30 seconds of high intensity followed by 30 seconds of recovery with repeated intervals. There are 3 different levels demonstrated at the same time in the video.

Personal Modifications

I personally modified the Peak 8 to a Peak 6 this year as it was sometimes just too strenuous for me to do all 8. So by listening to my body and cutting it back to 6 reps, I can now easily tolerate the workout and go full out and I no longer dread doing them.

Another tweak is to incorporate Butyenko breathing into the workout and do most of the workout by only breathing through my nose. This raises the challenge to another level. I will discuss more of the benefits of this in a future article but I do believe it has many benefits.

I then finish my Peak 6 workout with Power Plate stretches, 10 pull ups, 10 dips and 20 inverted pushups, and call it a day. I personally have never tried the Tabata protocol as it seems too intimidating and I’m not sure I could do it, but it is yet another option that people can use.

Can You Get Fit in Just Four Minutes, Four Times a Week?

After monitoring the Japanese speed skating team in the early 90’s, Dr. Tabata noticed that extremely hard but intermittent exercise appeared to be at least as effective as standard workouts that require several hours a week. The training protocol he came up with as a result requires a mere four minutes, four times a week. The caveat? Extreme intensity.

Dr. Tabata’s HIIT protocol calls for just 20 seconds of all-out drop-dead effort, followed by a mere 10 seconds of rest. This intense cycle is repeated eight times. According to Dr. Tabata:2

“All-out effort at 170 percent of your VO2 max is the criterion of the protocol. If you feel OK afterwards you’ve not done it properly. The first three repetitions will feel easy but the last two will feel impossibly hard. In the original plan the aim was to get to eight, but some only lasted six or seven.”

When performed four times per week for six weeks, participants in one experiment increased their anaerobic capacity by 28 percent, and their VO2 max (an indicator of cardiovascular health) and maximal aerobic power by 15 percent. This is in contrast to the control group, who performed an hour of steady cardiovascular exercise on a stationary bike five times a week. These participants improved their VO2 max by just 10 percent, and their regimen had no effect on their anaerobic capacity.

Dr. Tabata also has forthcoming research findings showing that his protocol reduces your risk of diabetes, which other HIIT studies have already suggested. And, according to the featured article:3

“Another soon-to-be-published finding, which Tabata describes as ‘rather significant,’ shows that the Tabata protocol burns an extra 150 calories in the 12 hours after exercise, even at rest, due to the effect of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. So while it is used by most people to get fit – or by fit people to get even fitter – it also burns fat.”

As Little as Three Minutes of HIIT Per Week Can Improve Your Health, Previous Study Suggests

Dr. Tabata’s claims may sound crazy, but previous research has also found that performing high intensity exercises for just minutes per week can significantly improve important health indices. One such study found that just three minutes of HIIT per week for four weeks improved participants’ insulin sensitivity an average of 24 percent. This truly is amazing, and while aerobic fitness is indeed important, improving and maintaining good insulin sensitivity is perhaps one of the most important aspects of optimal health.

Other research has also demonstrated that 20 minutes of high intensity training, two to three times a week, can yieldgreater results than slow and steady conventional aerobics done five times a week. But the fact that you can improve your insulin sensitivity by nearly 25 percent with a time investment of less than ONE HOUR A MONTH really shows that you can significantly improve your health without having to eliminate hours of other commitments from your calendar.

As I mentioned previously I have not even attempted this protocol as I know how hard Peak Fitness is with a 90 second recovery. I shudder to think how painful the Tabata protocol is with only 10 seconds to recover. That said, I believe that while it’s theoretically possible to reap valuable results with as little as three minutes once a week, it might be more beneficial to do these exercises two or three times a week for a total of four minutes of intense exertion, especially if you are not doing strength training.

You do not need to do them more often than that however. In fact, doing HIIT more frequently than two or three times a week can be counterproductive, as your body needs to recover between these intense sessions. If you feel the urge to do more, make sure you’re really pushing yourself as hard as you can during those two or three weekly sessions, rather than increasing the frequency. Remember, intensity is KEY for reaping all the benefits interval training can offer. To perform it correctly, you’ll want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold, and to do that, you have to give it your all for those 20 to 30 seconds. Phil Campbell suggests that it needs to be even higher than your maximum calculated heart rate, which is about 220 minus your age.

Why High Intensity Interval Training May Be Ideal for Most

Contrary to popular belief, extended extreme cardio actually sets in motion inflammatory mechanisms that damage your heart. So while your heart is indeed designed to work very hard, and will be strengthened from doing so, it’s only designed to do sointermittently, and for short periods—not for an hour or more at a time. This is the natural body mechanics you tap into when you perform HIIT.

Repeatedly and consistently overwhelming your heart by long distance marathon running, for example, can actually prematurely age your heart and make you more vulnerable to irregular heart rhythm. This is why you sometimes hear of seasoned endurance athletes dropping dead from cardiac arrest during a race.

Compelling and ever-mounting research shows that the ideal form of exercise is short bursts of high intensity exercise. Not only does it beat conventional cardio as the most effective and efficient form of exercise, it also provides health benefits you simply cannot get from regular aerobics, such as a tremendous boost in human growth hormone (HGH), aka the “fitness hormone.”

What Makes HIIT so Effective?

Your body has three types of muscle fibers: slow, fast, and super-fast twitch muscles. Slow twitch muscles are the red muscles, which are activated by traditional strength training and cardio exercises. The latter two (fast and super-fast) are white muscle fibers, and these are only activated during high intensity interval exercises or sprints.

According to fitness expert Phil Campbell, author of Ready, Set, Go, getting cardiovascular benefits requires working all three types of muscle fibers and their associated energy systems — and this cannot be done with traditional cardio, which onlyactivates your red, slow twitch muscles. If your fitness routine doesn’t work your white muscle, you aren’t really working your heart in the most beneficial way. The reason for this is because your heart has two different metabolic processes:

  • The aerobic, which requires oxygen for fuel, and
  • The anaerobic, which does not require any oxygen

Traditional strength training and cardio exercises work primarily the aerobic process, while high intensity interval exercises work both your aerobic AND your anaerobic processes, which is what you need for optimal cardiovascular benefit. This is why you may not see the results you desire even when you’re spending an hour on the treadmill several times a week. Interestingly enough, when it comes to high intensity exercises, less really is more. You can get all the benefits you need in just a 20-minute session, start to finish, performed two or a max of three times per week.

How to Properly Perform Peak Fitness Exercises

If you are using exercise equipment, I recommend using a recumbent bicycle or an elliptical machine for your high-intensity interval training, although you certainly can use a treadmill, or sprint anywhere outdoors. Just beware that if you sprint outside, you must be very careful about stretching prior to sprinting.

I personally prefer and recommend the Peak Fitness approach of 30 seconds of maximum effort followed by 90 seconds of recuperation, opposed to Dr. Tabata’s more intense routine of 20 seconds of exertion and only 10 seconds of recovery. But some might like his strategy more. His approach may be better suited to fitter athletes who want to kick it up another notch, but may be too intense for most people. For a demonstration using an elliptical machine, please see the following video. Here are the core principles:

  • Warm up for three minutes
  • Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate
  • Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance
  • Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times. (When you’re first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you’re doing eight during your 20-minute session)
  • Cool down for a few minutes afterward by cutting down your intensity by 50-80 percent

 

Source: mercola.com