We’ve recently added on a devoted HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) Room to our studio at Acacia Health. This has allowed us to focus more attention to those who want to achieve accelerated results in a small group training environment.
When it comes to high intensity exercise, and getting the most out of your invested time, 30 minutes is all it takes. When asked why our sessions run for 30 minutes, I could be smug and tell you that’s what I do, it works, so replicate it. But I’ve got a bit of time to scribble down a few thoughts and ideas, so here goes…
Why 30 minutes?
- Firstly, the higher the intensity and impact of the exercise (or exercise session) the less the required duration. At a higher intensity and impact, your body simply cannot sustain a prolonged effort as you will break down with fatigue, soreness and have a higher potential for injury. Your body has an inbuilt “stress-adaptation” response – i.e. the greater the stress (in this case, high intensity exercise) the more likely your body will adapt and change to cope with it. You could call it a survival mechanism.
- Get more “bang for your buck.” – high intensity, weight resisted interval training has been proven (through studies, tests and trials) to demonstrate that short bursts of effort (10-20 seconds), followed by short recovery intervals (of equal or similar time to the efforts) has just as much of a health benefit (and in many cases, even more so) as slogging it out for endless hours per week doing low impact, low intensity cardiovascular exercise (LSD = Long, Slow, Distance).
- It’s not even 30 minutes! Following a 5 minute dynamic warm-up and finishing off with a 5 minute cool down, leaves you with 20 minutes of potential effort. However, for every effort there is going to be a recovery period. And between each set of exercises there may even be as much as 1 minute rest. So all up you may be having as much as 25-40% “down time” during the 20 minutes of potential effort. That leaves roughly 12-15 minutes of real, hard work. Now is it asking too much to “rev your engine” for just over 1% of your 24 hour day?
- If you want to get the health and fitness results that you’re really after, you have to be realistic. It takes time, hard work, persistence, intensity, consistency, and a certain amount of pain. If you want to fast track your results (i.e. 12 weeks to a fitter, healthier, more energetic you), you will need to be doing this type of training 6 out of 7 days per week, with additional LSD sessions (at least 3 per week) such as walking, cycling, swimming, yoga or jogging. “If you want it badly enough you’ll find a way, if not you’ll find an excuse.”
- The diagram below illustrates the most effective exercise/training specifically for fat burning. If you have loads of time on your hands and you love a casual 3 hour bike ride on a sunny day, then feel free to utilize that type of training to assist with your fat loss. If, however, you are extremely limited with your prioritized time allocation to exercise, then HIIT it is!
- Another consideration is that it is a good idea to get a good mix of different types of sports, activities and exercises to ensure that you are moving all you joints and using all your muscles. And also the way in which you do that is vital; i.e. high intensity + high impact (e.g. sprinting), high intensity + low impact (e.g. indoor cycle class, Pilates bootcamp), low intensity + low impact (yoga).
For more info on our Group PT sessions, browse through our website or give us a call to book in a session.
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