


Plus, you get additional benefits that cardio can’t give you, such as muscle growth. With just ~20 minutes of high intensity interval training, you can burn as many calories as a long duration traditional cardio workout does in around 40 minutes. HIIT workouts achieve a lot in a short period of time.

The benefits of HIIT for women are twofold considering. High intensity interval training can be effectively tailored to women based on their fitness level and strength, which is why we’ve made this HIIT guide specifically for females. However, that doesn’t mean the workouts have to be exactly the same. Now, of course, HIIT is also great for men. Basically, women are better at burning fat during workouts than men, but not during rest, which makes HIIT even more attractive for women. What’s more, research shows that women burn more fat during HIIT than men AND they can handle more work in the gym when it comes to fat loss. In fact, many experts claim that HIIT is especially beneficial for women because (if done properly) it is fantastic for hormone balance, muscle retention, and bone density. HIIT is just as good for women as it is for men. It’s not like cardio where you need 30+ minutes to actually get an effect. Thankfully, that’s all you need to have positive effect with HIIT. Work intervals are generally no more than 60 seconds and the entire workout around 20 minutes or less. If you combine weights with HIIT at the same time, things can get really serious!įinally, it should be noted that because HIIT is so intense (it’s in the name, right?), you can’t have long workouts like you can cardio. BUT, it does share some major benefits with cardio, as it does weight training. As such, HIIT is more like weight training than cardio. Like weight training, due to the shortage of oxygen for energy consumption, your body relies on glucose and creatine phosphates (ATP) to fuel your muscles with energy. HIIT workouts are anaerobic NOT aerobic, meaning your muscles don’t use oxygen as their primary source of energy. It’s quite different from traditional cardio (steady state low intensity running or cycling). The general purpose of HIIT is to burn calories, lose weight, and even build muscle. Now that you know what HIIT is, it’s important to understand the “science” behind it. The myriad options for creating HIIT workouts allows you to always keep things fresh and challenging. They can be done with sprints, cycling, bodyweight exercises or even weights, using various work-rest intervals. There are plenty of ways to go about high intensity interval training. That said, the workouts can be tailored to different fitness levels. The concept is quite easy, but the workouts are NOT. So, by the time your heart rate starts to hit 65% or so, you will perform another intense set to bring it right back up. The ultimate goal is to have a period of near max heart rate followed by a rest period that doesn’t allow your heart rate to drop below ~65% max. For example, 20 seconds intense burst of exercise, 10 seconds rest, repeated for a certain number of rounds. 85-90% max heart rate) followed by rest or active rest. In a nutshell, the workouts involve intervals of intense exercise that get your heart rate up high (approx. HIIT stands for high intensity interval training.

In this article, you are going to learn everything you need to know about HIIT. Whether you are just getting into high intensity interval training or you are looking for new HIIT exercise and workout ideas, LADIES we have you covered.
