Body with Soul
Articles
Feel Alive, Get HIIT Up!

Articles

It is already February and time is zipping by, as it seems. What have you accomplished thus far? Not feeling good about you? Perhaps, don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself a pat on your back for staying on track on your 2015 goal.

Is one of your goals a health goal? How is that coming alone? Hitting the gym much? Eating smart much? Skipping the gym much? Well, skipping the gym seems like a good idea when you do not feel at all motivated after a long day at work. Spend as little as 7 minutes is the perfect pick-me-up for waning self-esteem.

You would think that by becoming fitter you would experience greater improvements in terms of body image, but that’s not true. According to a Health Psychology Journal, as many as 60% of adults say they do not like the way their bodies look. Body dissatisfaction is a huge problem and is related to all sorts of negative behavior including yo-yo dieting, smoking, taking steroids, slimming pills and undergoing the knife. It affects men and women of all ages, including children as young as five years old.

So what is one way of boosting self-esteem? Try HIIT. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. It is a short burst of intensive training with less-intense recovery periods. HIIT accelerates fat-burning and metabolism compared to a steady state cardio. With low intensity steady state cardio, one will lose strength and power as well as metabolism.

With HIIT, one will more calories from fat. A typical 30-minute HIIT session would result in 300 loss of calories depending on the intensity and recovery period.

HIIT is king for burning more fat and maintaining muscle. The most common HIIT protocol is the Tabata workout that is 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds rest.

The major reason HIIT works so well for dropping body fat is due to the greater calorie burn or EPOC (excess post oxygen consumption) that is maintained after the workout is over.

The beauty of HIIT is that it could be incorporated in different types of exercises such as weight training, functional training and kickboxing. One obvious benefit of doing HIIT is one’s muscle endurance will be increased and boost one’s metabolism and overall body conditioning.

So what are you waiting for?

A Typical HIIT Routine

Tabata Style 20 seconds of work 10 seconds of rest