How often should you hit pause on HIIT?
June 23, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments
So, you may’ve heard HIIT is the perfect fast forward button for weight loss.
(Aside from the fact that you sorta wanna strangle yourself with your own jumprope halfway through…)
Sure, it’s tough stuff. But, with its high intensity (that’s what the acro stands for: High Intensity Interval Training), followed by brief bits of rest, it’s a maximum fat blaster. Plus, it cuts the time of weight cutting, too. Not only are the workouts themselves short – but you burn far more than you would doing conventional cardio and strengthening. In other words: you can get in twice what other workouts offer, in half the time (or less). But is it possible you’re getting too much of a good thing? Maybe. Because if you’re rocking your HAM level HIIT more than four days a week, the pros seem to concede it’s indeed excessive.
But… why?
Well, the first argument’s that it’s not exactly effective if you’re doing it on the daily anyway. See, with sprint-ervals (as in – going as hard and fast as you can), the idea’s to max out ’til you tap out. In other words, if your rapid-fire moves are meant to last 45 seconds, you should feel like you’re gonna collapse by second number 46. So, if you’ve got the energy to bang out workouts fatiguing as these day after day, then maybe you’re doing it wrong anyway, they say. Now, I tend to think there’s a whole mental element that kinda counters this: there’s always a little left in the tank if you dig deep enough. (That’s just coming from the Navy SEAL I train with, though. I mean, what’s he know…) I’ve had trainers lie about “ten more seconds” innumerable times. Thus, my mentality’s become to just keep going as quick and hard as I can, making every second an impeccable performance – until I hear that bell. That said, I don’t have my degree in “picking things up and putting them down” at the gym, so believe who and what you will on that one.
Besides, what I can’t deny, is the second argument: the need for recovery time. I may workout every day of my life. But you know what I also do? Schedule at least 24 hours between workouts on one of those days. (I still stand by the fact that 8:00 A.M. Monday to 8:00 A.M. Tuesday counts as the 24 hour minimum required for a rest day.) And everyone I know – working toward weight loss and muscle gains alike – follows the variety method as well: intersperse your cardio, strengthening, and HIIT for your best results. Why? Well, if you just spent hours lifting yesterday, those HIIT sesh burpees are gonna feel like napalm bombs are going off all over your body. Good luck going at sprint speed with all’a that DOMS dominating you.
And that leads to the final drawback of making HIIT an “all day e’ry day” mentality: mental burnout.
(Which is fine… *if* you don’t have to human or job in between gym’ing.)
Because, as mentioned above, high intensity intervals shouldn’t feel comfy.
This isn’t your yoga class. This isn’t some zen nature jog. This is a torturous, sweaty investment – fit for a scene in Saw: Part twelve and a half. And, as with all uncomfortable activities, there’s an element of mental burnout you earn as the glistening door prize. Without sufficient R&R between, your brain’ll begin to rebel. Keeping in mind that you have a whole life outside’ve the gym, this isn’t particularly wise. I found this out the hard way. Thinking I was Wonder Woman, I stacked my HIIT and strengthening last week. And you wanna know what happened? The quality of my work and workouts alike for the next two days were about as good as the Wonder Woman movie itself was. (Yeah. I said it. What? COME AT ME.)
The point’s this: we all love the idea of getting to that weight loss goal double fast. And, TBH, HIIT is about the closest thing we’ve got to the Adam Sandler Click remote for getting us there. That said, even this fast forward fitness function has its limitations. Why? Because we do, as humans. We need in-between time to recover, cover the other areas of fitness, and take care’ve our cognitive organ, too.
In sum, not one’s saying to halt the HIIT.
Just press pause for recovery time, surf your other body ‘n brain channels, and then “hit” it again in a few days.