How to HIIT Your Fitness Goals By This Summer

 

You're truly focused this time. You're going to meet your fitness goals, and you're going to do it fast. You will get muscular and strong and in awesome shape. The only question is how. How can you achieve real fitness in just a few months?

You don't have enough free time to spend hours a week on cardio, and it is too boring anyway. Hours in the gym working out with some trainer isn't in the cards either. Surely there's a way to get a lean body, flatten your abs, and add a little muscle without sacrificing the rest of your life. Well you're in luck. There is a way to do all of the above. It's a workout approach called HIIT.

What in the World is HIIT?

HIIT stands for High-Intensity Interval Training. A HIIT workout involves cycles of short, high-intensity work, followed by short recovery periods. When you work out this way, your heart rate continually varies, rocketing from a relatively low level to near your maximum heart rate, then back down again. HIIT workouts are tough, but fortunately, they're short.

Typically, a workout entails a warm-up period, several cycles of high-intensity work, and a cool down period. The entire program normally takes less than an hour to complete. Working out more than three times a week is strongly discouraged, as doing more wouldn't give your muscles enough time to recover.

Compare the HIIT approach to the usual kinds of workouts that feature great activities like jogging for hours, swimming endless laps, and heavy dieting. Short intense HIIT workouts look pretty enticing compared to all that and are more likely to fit into your already overcrowded life.

But how well does High-Intensity Interval Training work?

Scientists show conclusively that the ever-changing heart rates and exercise levels associated with high-intensity interval training are very effective for burning fat while maintaining or even adding to your muscle mass. These results hold true despite the fact that HIIT workouts are often much shorter than traditional workout routines and even though your body is most efficient at burning fat during long slow aerobic workouts like swimming laps. The answer to this seeming paradox is that HIIT workouts cause your metabolic rate to stay higher during the times between workouts as your system recovers from the intensity of the workouts.

What's a HIIT routine like?

Are you curious as to what a HIIT workout is actually like?. The details vary depending on the design of the particular program, but they have a lot of common elements to them. In particular, they usually involve multi-joint movements.

Multi-joint movements are exercises like deadlifts that require the use of multiple muscle groups. These exercises are fundamentally different than exercises like curls, which involve a single muscle group. Involving multiple muscle groups in each exercise really cranks up the intensity while making it possible to get a lot done in a short time.

Perhaps the prototypical HIIT workout is sprinting. The way a sprinter trains, with frequent short bursts of extreme movement interspersed with rest periods is HIIT in its purest form. And if you've ever looked at the physiques on sprinters, you've seen what kind of results HIIT can generate .

More and more, short, high-intensity workouts are being recognized as the best way to develop and maintain a strong, fit, sexy body while you strengthen your heart, and burn fat. If you want to be fit and lean by summer, with a flat belly, solid muscles, and a healthy heart, try a HIIT workout plan.