Interval Training

One of the people who has strongly affected my outlook on weight loss exercise was a guy by the name of Pareto. He's probably best known for his 80/20 rule, the pareto effect.

HIIT is a great example of the pareto effect, a small amount of time, huge benefits. It is however very tough, imagine you weren't getting the most benefit you could out of your HIIT routine. That would be such a waste.

One of the problems with exercise and weight loss is that the devil is in the details. If I could give you a tip that would guarantee more bang for your buck while doing HIIT you would be interested, right?

I once trained a middle aged gentleman who was convinced he had a genetic disposition to being fat. "It's in my genes", Mr Harris used to tell me and for the first week or two it looked like he was right. The scale needle looked like it was glued onto his weight.

"So what intervals are you doing?" I asked him. "That machine that works your arms like you are swimming….." he replied. One small tweak to this program and his weight began to fly off.

One sure way of making substantial increases in the amount of fat you lose from HIIT is to choose bigger muscle groups to use.

HIIT loses you weight by exhausting the energy supplies your muscles store inside themselves. The intensity of the HIIT routine gives your body no choice but to release this energy, but normally it is stored and used only in emergencies. As a result when its used up the body run around in a panic trying to replace this energy.

If you eating a sensible diet there isn't going to be enough energy from this to replace both the muscle and run your body normally. There is however another goldmine of energy, your fat stores, which your body mines extensively to replace this lost energy.

Now here's the secret, some of your muscle groups store substantially more energy than others. Switch your HIIT to these muscle groups and your body will have to mine substantially more fat to be able to replace the reserves that have been lost. These muscle groups are the larger ones, like your legs. It also shows why sprinting will always be leagues ahead of the swimming arm machine…

Before I tell you about HIIT Training, let me share a short story with you... I've got a friend who I am in constant debate with. He truly believes that the secret to fat loss is all about running long distances. I can provide him with contrary evidence, research, real life proof of HIIT's Training's effectiveness, it really doesn't matter, he will never change his mind about this.

The problem is that he isn't alone. In fact, he's in the massive majority. If you ever need to prove this, go and have look at your local gym at around 6 pm. Multi-colored exercisers replicated on the treadmill, all going nowhere at around the same speed.

Now I'm certainly not advocating that aerobic exercise is bad for you, exactly the opposite, it has multiple health benefits that will improve your well being. All that's being said here is that if your goal is fat loss, steady state aerobic exercise is not the right tool. In fact out of all the tools at your disposal, it is the least effective method for fat loss.

But how can this be? When you finish running on the treadmill it always tells you how many calories you burnt during your run? Exercise is tiring; surely we must be losing fat? Well unfortunately not, research suggests that after aerobic exercise our fat burning capacity is actually lowered, resulting in an almost negligible amount of weight lost. And the scary addition to this is that the more aerobic workouts we do, the more resistance our body will have to losing any fat.

So if aerobic training is the pea shooter of weight loss, let me introduce you to the cannon.

Interval Training has completely the opposite effect on our bodies. High Intensity Interval Training workouts turn your body to 'fat burning' mode and that can last for up to 48 hours after the exercise. Not only does it burn the fat very soon after your workout, but it also facilitates change in your body system to burn fat much more efficiently 'all of the time'. As your muscles begin to require more energy, the body sends fat to the muscles for use rather than storing it in your belly or thighs. An increased frequency of High Intensity Interval Training can result in your body tending to do this more.

HIIT Training can be quite difficult but if you are serious about losing fat this is the number one way to do it. If you have used a treadmill to no avail, you may want to try this. Begin slowly and use a few weeks to gradually increase the intensity and you will see your body improve dramatically.