HIIT Cardio - The TKO to Fat!

That’s right folks; I’m doing another blog on that heart healthy word, “Cardio.” If you’ve been following my JamesEllisFit Physically Fit Blogs, then you probably remember the blog I put up last week titled, “Cardio with a purpose!” If you haven’t read that blog yet, then I highly recommend you read it as you first need to establish what exactly your goal is for doing cardio. When you know your cardio goal you can then choose what ‘training zone’ best suits you. If your goal is focused on both losing some belly fat and keeping good lean muscle mass, then you have certainly come to the right blog posting as HIIT Cardio is a great way to do that and its fun too.

First let me explain to you what exactly HIIT Cardio is, and then I will share with you some great ways to execute this total knock out training. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, and I must say it is a great way to shock your body and thus see some amazing results. I have several different ways that I like to do HIIT cardio, two of which I will share with you here in this blog and I’m sure you will get the idea from there.

One way I do HIIT cardio is to warm up on the treadmill at a light jogging pace for 2 minutes and then I go straight into the interval fun by bringing that treadmill speed up to a sprint (for me 10+ mph) for 30 seconds. When 30 seconds is up I bring the pace down to a light jog (about 4-5mph for me) for 90 seconds, and then it’s back to that sprint for another 30 seconds. I do the ‘30 sec hard/90 sec easy’ interval training for a total of 16 minutes (8 intervals), and then I cool down for 2 minutes. So, the total time of your HIIT cardio with warm-up and cool-down is 20 minutes of ‘BULLDOG’ training.

There are other variations of interval time that you may choose to do instead. For instance, you might choose to do your intervals at 20 seconds hard and 1 minute easy. I feel that either one of these will work fine, and maybe one day you’ll choose to do it one way and the next HIIT session you’ll do it the other way. Switching things up is definitely a great way to shock the system.

Don’t feel that you have to limit yourself to just the treadmill either. You can do HITT cardio in the very same way on the elliptical, bike, Stairmaster, etc. You can also take your HIIT cardio outdoors too and just time yourself using a chronograph watch. If you don’t have a watch there are other great ways to do this high intensity interval training. For instance, you could go to the track and do your intervals by sprinting for 100-200 meters, and then jogging for about 400 meters. Or if you want to run out in the country you could do your intervals by sprinting for the distance of about two telephone poles and jogging for about three or four telephone poles. I used to do these telephone pole intervals when I was a cross country runner in Junior/Senior high school and we called them "Fart Licks"... I have no idea why. LOL! Anyways, the same interval idea could apply in the city with street lights or city blocks, etc.

Quite possibly my favorite way to do HIIT cardio and what I find to be a bit more intense is to do 10 intervals of 40 seconds of high intensity and 20 seconds standing in place. Notice the high intensity vs. low intensity time has flip flopped and instead of a jog for low intensity it’s standing in place. This kind of HIIT cardio takes a lot less time to wear you out. All of this can be done in one spot (the living room, kitchen, park, gym, bedroom, etc.) as I choose what I want to do for each hard interval of 40 seconds. Here are some examples: high knees, jumping jacks, single leg butt kicks, half jacks, quick feet, up downs, burpees, sprinting in place, etc. All of those examples in the last sentence will be done at the fastest pace you can go for 40 seconds, and then you will simply stand in place for 20 seconds to let you heart rate come down. (If you are new to this and the 40/20 split is a bit too much for your, then maybe you'll start with 20 seconds hard and a 40 second rest, or perhaps 30/30. Within weeks, I'm sure you'll work up to that 40/20 split.) 10 intervals of this is quite the fat burning cardio workout, but if you need more, you can always go for 15 or 20 minutes too.

I don’t recommend doing this kind of HIIT cardio more than 3-4 times per week as it is some pretty intense training, and also because you don’t want your body to adjust to it and thus get less results. For my weekly cardio I do HIIT cardio every other day and fat burning cardio (65% Mhr) on the treadmill in the mornings with an empty stomach on the days I’m not doing HIIT cardio. I do try to give myself one day off of cardio per week too as it is important to let the body rest as well. By incorporating both cardio training styles into my week I always keep my body guessing and thus get the results I desire.

I'd also like to suggest that you try my GoodBoyFitness 'HIIT Band Workouts' (Click to see them), as these are excellent for both fat burning and muscle toning. In these workout video downloads, David Kimmerle and I take you through 10 minutes of High Intensity Resistance Training (with Resistance Bands) and then we end with 5 minutes of High Intensity Interval Training. So, in these 15 minute workout (we have 6 of them), you reap the benefits of some great muscle toning AND fat burning. Studies show that weight training, which is what we are doing with the resistance bands, also have some amazing benefits towards fat burning as well. All that to say, these 6 workout video downloads are a stick of dynamite to any fat your are carrying around. I hope you'll try them out and share with me the amazing results your are receive. P.S. For a LIMITED TIME, we have an amazing SALE on these video too.

I hope this blog serves in aiding you to attain your desired goals. Keep coming back here to this JamesEllisFit Physically Fit Blog for more of my future blogs. If you would like to see what I do for weight training in the gym, then be sure to go to my JamesEllisFit 'Get Fit Store' and download my body specific weight training videos where you will not only see exactly what I do in the gym, but you’ll learn my Scientific Training Methods too. For a LIMITED TIME I have my best SALE ever on these video downloads too. : )