Making Your Heart Explode with HIIT and Getting over Plateaus

 

 

HIIT stands for High Impact Interval Training. Its purpose is to increase fat burning and endurance by making you feel like a weak piece of shit over and over and over again. 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week minimum. The most common HIIT uses sprinting as its focus, Probably because you don’t need equipment to run as fast as possible.

The basic idea is to rapidly increase and decrease your heart rate by maxing out, then resting repeatedly.

SO! A basic HIIT routine will look like this:

Minutes 1-4 (Warm-Up)
Jog at about 50% effort

Minute 5 First-Half (Workout Interval 1)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 5 Last-Half (Workout Interval 2)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 6 First-Half (Workout Interval 3)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 6 Last-Half (Workout Interval 4)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 7 First-Half (Workout Interval 5)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 7 Last-Half (Workout Interval 6)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 8 First-Half (Workout Interval 7)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minute 8 Last-Half (Workout Interval 8)
Sprint 20 seconds at maximum effort
Jog/Walk 10 seconds

Minutes 9-12 (Cool-Down)
Jog at about 50% effort

A 20 minute variation of this helped me get from 220lbs to 175lbs during my cutting phase. While I prefer the sweet sounds of bearded men screaming into my cochlea, you may prefer something else a little more eclectic. Your choice of music should always provide a high tempo and pounding beat. You do tend to move to the beat of music, It’s called dancing or something(It’s a mystery).

If you have any questions on this topic or achieving your gym goals toss me a comment and don’t forget to FOLLOW ME.

Words of the week brought to you by Nietzsche:

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

Thank you.