High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) can provide the same health benefits as regular exercise, even though it is done in a shorter time. The benefits of HIIT cardio exercise that you can also feel are helping to burn calories and reduce excess fat in the body, increase heart rate, and balance blood pressure.
Many people may have difficulty finding time to focus on exercising. Time-consuming activities make people lazy to exercise. HIIT cardio can be the right choice for those of you who still want to take a little time to keep your body healthy with exercise.
But what exactly is HIIT training?
Understanding HIIT exercise
HIIT is a general term for interval training. This workout combines several high-intensity exercise movements that are performed alternately for several minutes.
The function of this exercise is to increase the heart rate significantly, up to at least 80% of the maximum heart rate. Not only high-intensity exercise movements, HIIT also combines low-intensity movements.
Typically, HIIT cardio workouts are done for 10–30 minutes. One of the main advantages of doing HIIT cardio is that you can get maximum health benefits from a short workout time.
The exercise movements performed can vary, but generally include sprinting, cycling, jumping rope, and many more.
For example, a HIIT cardio workout using a stationary bike , you can cycle for 30 seconds as fast as possible with high resistance. Then followed by a few minutes of slow cycling with low resistance.
This one set of exercises is counted as one repetition of HIIT cardio exercise. You are advised to do 4–6 repetitions during one HIIT exercise session with this stationary bike.
How long you exercise and rest can vary based on the activity you choose, and how intensely you exercise.
HIIT cardio exercise not only provides maximum exercise benefits in a short time, but there are several benefits of HIIT cardio that have an impact on body health, such as:
Burn lots of calories
When doing this high-intensity exercise, you can burn calories quickly and even more. A study compared the calories burned during 30 minutes of HIIT training, weight training, running, and cycling.
Researchers found that HIIT can burn 25–30% more calories than other forms of exercise. In this study, the repetitions of the movements in HIIT consisted of 20 seconds of high-intensity exercise and 40 seconds of rest.
This means that participants who did HIIT cardio only exercised for a third of the time spent by the group of participants who did running and cycling.
Although in this study each sport was done for 30 minutes, participants who did HIIT training only used less time than other types of sport.
Ultimately, it can be concluded that HIIT can help you burn more calories or burn the same number of calories as other types of exercise, in less time.
Also read: Sure Your Body is Slim? Here's How to Calculate Ideal Body Weight
Increase metabolism
One way that high-intensity exercise can help you burn calories actually happens after you’re done exercising. Several studies have shown that HIIT can increase your metabolic rate for hours after your workout is over.
One study even found that HIIT can increase metabolism after exercise, more than jogging or weight training. The same study also found that HIIT can shift the use of carbohydrates to the use of fat to be used as an energy source in the body's metabolism.
Reduce excess fat
Studies have shown that HIIT can help you lose excess fat. One study looked at 13 experiments conducted on 424 adults with overweight or obesity issues.
From this study, it was found that HIIT and moderate intensity exercise can help reduce body fat and waist circumference.
Several other studies have also shown that HIIT can reduce body fat even if done only for a short time. However, like other forms of physical exercise, HIIT is also most effective at losing fat in people who are overweight or obese.
Helps build muscle
In addition to helping burn fat, HIIT cardio exercise can also help increase muscle mass in some people who do this exercise regularly.
However, generally the increase in muscle mass occurs in the muscles that are used most frequently, and this usually only occurs in the muscles of the trunk and legs.
Not only that, but increasing muscle mass due to HIIT is also more likely to occur in people who were initially less active. Weight training is still considered the most effective exercise for increasing muscle mass.
Reduce blood pressure
Regularly engaging in high-intensity exercise can provide important health benefits. Many studies have found that it can help reduce high heart rates and blood pressure in people with overweight and obesity, where high blood pressure is common.
A study found that doing HIIT cardio for 8 weeks on a stationary bike can lower blood pressure as much as endurance exercise in adults with high blood pressure.
In this study, the group of participants who did endurance training exercised 4 days a week for 30 minutes per day, and the group of participants who did HIIT only exercised 3 times a week for 20 minutes per day.
Lowering blood sugar
HIIT workouts lasting less than 12 weeks can help lower blood sugar. A summary of 50 studies found that HIIT workouts not only reduced blood sugar but also improved insulin resistance.
Based on this information, it is possible that high-intensity exercise may be beneficial for people at high risk for type 2 diabetes. Several studies specifically conducted in people with type 2 diabetes have shown the effectiveness of HIIT in maintaining blood sugar levels.
Also read: 10 Benefits of Cardio Exercise, Not Just for the Heart
How to start a HIIT workout?
There are many ways to start doing HIIT workouts. First, you just need to choose the physical exercise you will do, such as running, cycling, jumping rope, and others.
Next, you can try to play around with your workout duration and rest time, you can determine how long you will do intense physical exercise and how long you will rest to recover.
If you are just starting to exercise after being inactive, start by exercising twice a week. HIIT workouts can be very tiring, especially when doing higher-impact workouts. Getting enough recovery time between intense workouts is essential to avoid injury.
