I like to visualize Ben Johnson crushing Carl Lewis when I do my HIIT sprints

So, there I was.

I had just finished a set of killer HIIT sprints….when the Lance Armstrong clone to my left asked me “what’s the deal with that workout”?

I think I croaked something about anaerobic this and EPOC that…and was about to hop off the bike when he said…

“that’s just a fad..like Atkins. If you want to get fit, you HAVE to do cardio”

Arrrgggghhhh!

Stifling my hulk-like rage, I asked…

“What do you mean I have to do cardio?”

From there, he proceeded to tell me why cardio rocks and why high intensity training (HIIT, HIRT, resistance training) sucks.

Double arggghhhhh!

Hulk (me) was getting mad.

But, instead of smashing, I flipped him one of my business cards (along with a certain finger) and suggested he read the following study which shows (once again) how HIIT kicks cardio butt

And here’s the study.

According to the researchers, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is better than traditional endurance training for improving:

• Athletic performance
• Metabolic performance
• Molecular adaptation to exercise

According to researcher Martin Gibala…”doing as little as 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously.”

We have known for years that repeated moderate long-term exercise tunes up fuel and oxygen delivery to muscles and aids the removal of waste products. Exercise also improves the way muscles use the oxygen to burn the fuel in mitochondria, the microscopic power station of cells.

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Running or cycling for hours a week widens the network of vessels supplying muscle cells and also boosts the numbers of mitochondria in them so that a person can carry out activities of daily living more effectively and without strain, and crucially with less risk of a heart attack, stroke or diabetes.

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But the traditional approach to exercise is time consuming. Martin Gibala and his team have shown that the same results can be obtained in far less time with brief spurts of higher-intensity exercise.

Take that Mr. Lance Armstrong clone.

But wait, it get’s better.

One of the main complaints about High Intensity Interval Training is that it’s…well, too intense.

Sure, it gives you a great workout, but it will probably give you a heart attack.

Not according to Dr. Gibala.

The main purpose of his study was to prove the performance, metabolic and molecular advantages of a more practical model of low-volume HIIT.

The new study used a standard stationary bicycle and a workload which was still above most people’s comfort zone (about 95% of maximal heart rate) but only about half of what can be achieved when people sprint at an all-out pace.

• Seven men performed 6 HIIT training sessions over 2 weeks.
• Each session consisted of 8-12 x 60 s intervals (at ≈100% of peak power) separated by 75 s of rest.
• That’s a total of between 17 and 26 minutes per workout or 2 ½ hours over 2 weeks

So, how does this workout compare to traditional cardio?

According to the doc, to achieve the same performance, metabolic and molecular benefits with traditional endurance (cardio) training, you’d need to complete over 10 hours of continuous moderate bicycling exercise over a two-week period.

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Hmmmmm…let’s recap.

HIIT

• 2 ½ hours per week

Cardio

• 10 hours per week

And I won’t even mention the fact that HIIT workouts make you look like this:

while cardio workouts make you look like this…

your choice.

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If you like what you see here, click here for updates

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Related Posts

• 10 More Reasons to Love HIIT
• Tabata Workouts WILL Cause Fat Loss
• Tabata Training 101
• HIIT: The Aerobic version
• 4 Steps to a Great HIIT Workout
• High Intensity Resistance Training
• Why Can’t I Lose This Fat? – Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• HIRT Exercise Descriptions
• Part 5
• Waves and Waves of HIIT
• HIRT – No Equipment – No Problem
• HIIT Workouts – Vertical Jump Training
• Energy System Fitness

It’s no secret – I love High Intensity Interval Training.

• I love that it’s great for melting body-fat
• I love that it’s great for improving aerobic fitness
• I love that it’s great for improving anaerobic fitness
• And I love the fact that I get all of these benefits without having to spend hours on a treadmill like some kind of human/gerbil hybrid.

BUT, one thing I don’t like about HIIT/Tabata Training is that intensity is highly subjective.

When I tell a client that I want 100% on a set of interval sprints, how can I know that they are giving 100% effort.

How do we measure intensity?

Well, up until now, here’s what I have been doing (I will use HIIT bike sprints as an example)

• After an adequate warm-up, I set the exercise bike at the appropriate level of resistance.
• Then we start banging out 10 second sprints going as fast as possible
• I help things along by “encouraging” my client to go faster.

• I also ask the client to track the number of revolution one leg makes during the 10 second sprint.
• For example, a new client recently tested out at 25, 27, 28, 28, 29, 27 and 24 revolutions per leg per 10 seconds. (bike resistance set at level 7 of 10)

• This means that their maximum speed at resistance level 7 was 29 revs per leg per 10 sec.

• This is also the number we now use to judge performance.

If they pedal slower than 29 rev @ level 7, then they are either fatiguing, not working hard enough or just having a bad day.

It’s not very high tech, but it has worked pretty well…up until now.

Now, I want to get my hands on some of this technology.

These new pieces of technology (Pulse Oximeters, portable ECGs and Activity Monitors) are being used right now by elite level athletes and in research settings to determine how to make exercise more efficient.

And when you consider that every IPhone and Google Android phone comes equipped with a built-in accelerometer, a proximity sensor and is bluetooth ready, it is highly likely that in the very near future, you are going to be able to ramp up the efficiency of your workouts by at least 25%.

And where did I get that 25%, you might ask?

And the answer is…from this study.

Without going into all of the highly technical details, researchers used some of the technology mentioned above to collect performance data while putting their test subjects through a modified Tabata workout.

Then they took that data, combined it with the data collected via a medical survey questionnaire and plugged it into a data mining decision tree.

I told you it was technical.

The upshot is that after all of this data was crunched, the researchers were able to design optimized interval training programs personalized for each and every test subject.

And, as a result of those optimized programs, the test subjects were able to improve their performance by 29.54%

What do you think of that!!!

29.54%

I can’t wait to get my hands on some of this technology.

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Related Posts

• The Official “Make Ryan Reynolds your Beeyotch” Workout
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• The 25 Fittest Men in the World – Part 2
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• Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool Workout Plan
• WARNING: Tabata Workouts WILL Cause Fat Loss
• HealthHabits – 4 Steps to a Great HIIT Workout
• HIRT Training

Reference

• UCLA study

Researchers have discovered a cutting edge technique to help senior citizens improve the elasticity of their arteries – thereby reducing their risk of heart disease and stroke.

Led by Dr. Kenneth Madden, the researchers were able to reduce arterial stiffness by 15 to 20% in only 3 months time.

But wait, it gets better.

Unlike most cardiovascular treatments, the cost of this new cure-all is…….nothing, zero, nada, rien…it’s free.

It’s free because the treatment is:

Exercise

Wow!!!

Exercise instead of drugs…who would have thought of that???

The Study

Dr. Madden divided his test subjects into two groups.

1. The first group performed one hour of vigorous physical activity for one hour, three times a week for three months.
2. The second group continued to live a sedentary lifestyle.

Subjects were classified as sedentary at the beginning of the study but gradually increased their fitness levels until they were working at 70 per cent of their maximum heart rate, using treadmills and cycling machines. They were supervised by a certified exercise trainer.

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And after three months, the exercise group was healthier, while the sedentary group wasn’t.

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So, as a public service to all of my 65+ readers (and those readers with friends & family who are 65+), I will be posting “no equipment necessary” workouts geared toward trainees who are boomer age and older.

Enjoy

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BTW, this post is for my Dad…who should be outside right now getting some exercise

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If you like what you see here, click here for updates

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• Toronto By-Law Nazi Accosts Senior Citizens for Exercising in a Public Park
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• Can Potassium Reverse High Blood Pressure?
• The Future of Health Food
• Your Anti-Senility Prescription
• Why Do We Get OLD?
• The status-quo is broken…We need a new model for burning fat and getting fit

Reference

• EurekAlert

By this point, you should already know that you need more Omega 3 fatty acids into your diet.

The question is: how much?

• A teaspoon of fish oils?
• A tablespoon?
• 3 pills?
• or a great big slab of smoked salmon?

Well, according to this study, researchers believe that “a 200 mg dose of DHA per day is enough to affect biochemical markers that reliably predict cardiovascular problems, such as those related to aging, atherosclerosis, and diabetes”.

This study is the first to identify how much DHA is necessary to promote optimal heart health.

The Study

To determine the optimal dose of DHA, the researchers examined the effects of increasing doses of DHA on 12 healthy male volunteers between ages of 53 and 65. These men consumed doses of DHA at 200, 400, 800, and 1600 mg per day for two weeks for each dose amount, with DHA being the only omega-3 fatty acid in their diet. (No EPA)

Blood and urine samples were collected before and after each dose and at eight weeks after DHA supplementation stopped. The researchers then examined these samples for biochemical markers indicating the effects of each dose on the volunteers.

They found that supplementation with only 200 mg/d DHA for 2 wk induced an antioxidant effect.

They concluded that “low consumption of DHA could be an effective and nonpharmacological way to protect healthy men from platelet-related cardiovascular events”.

Conclusion

If this study is correct, you need only 200 mg of DHA per day to reap the cardiovascular benefits of the Omega 3 fatty acid DHA.

And how do you get 200 mg of DHA?

• 1/2 tsp of fish oil
• 2 of these kiddie chewable DHA supplements
• 5 Krill capsules
• 2 oz of fresh/frozen salmon or tuna

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No more excuses.

You do have time to exercise.

workout

If you only have 5 minutes to spare, do 1 of these workouts.

10 minutes = 2 workouts

15 minutes = 3 workouts….

…You don’t even have to go to the gym.

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The Rules

• Each workout lasts 5 minutes (the set/rep combinations are suggestions based upon my experience with clients)
• If you get to 5 minutes before you get to the end of the workout…STOP. 5 minutes max means 5 minutes max.
• Each workout involves 2 or 3 different exercises
• Perform 1 set of exercise A, then move on to exercise B
• No rest between sets – the workouts are designed to be performed with no rest
• If your form gets sloppy…slow down. Catch your breath. Good form is more important that getting one extra rep. Injuries suck.

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5 Minute Workout # 1

1.   Air Squats - bodyweight only – 5 sets of 30 reps

2.   Hindu Pushups – 5 sets of 15 reps

Try and complete all 10 sets in 5 minutes

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5 Minute Workout #2

1.   Dragon Flag  – 5 sets of 5-10 reps or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

2.   Shuffle or Scissor Lunges – 5 sets of 40-60 reps (20-30 per leg) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

Try and complete all 10 sets in 5 minutes

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5 Minute Workout #3

1.   Spiderman Lunge  – 5 sets of 12 reps (6 reps per side) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

2.  Hip Thrust/Bridge – 5 sets of 40-60 reps (20-30 per leg) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

Try and complete all 10 sets in 5 minutes

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5 Minute Workout #4

1.   Swing Snatch  – 5 sets of 10 reps (5 reps per arm) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

2.  1 Arm Dumbbell Press – 5 sets of 10 reps (5 reps per side) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

3. Siff Lunge – 5 sets of 10 reps (5 reps per side) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

Try and complete all 15 sets in 5 minutes

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5 Minute Workout #5…my personal favorite

1.   Jumping Bulgarian Squat  – 5 sets of 20 reps (10 reps per leg) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

2.  Band Woodchops – 5 sets of 20 reps (10 reps per side) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

3. 1 Leg Stiff Leg Deadlift – 5 sets of 10 reps (5 reps per side) or 5 minutes (whichever comes first)

Try and complete all 15 sets in 5 minutes

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Bonus Workout…if you have a partner

5 minutes of this…

BTW, Marv is another personal trainer from Toronto

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If you like what you see here, click here for updates

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Related Posts

• Are you tough enough for this workout?
• It HIRTs so good
  
• HIRT Workout…No Equipment…No Problem
  
• 1,000,000,001 Different Ways to Train your Chest
  
• Tabata Workouts WILL Cause Fat Loss
• Tabata Training 101
• 13 Training Mistakes You Need to Avoid
• HIIT: The Aerobic version
• 4 Steps to a Great HIIT Workout
• Power training
• Muscular strength made simple
• Components of Physical Fitness

Fitness training isn’t rocket science.

Good training & nutrition decisions produce good results.

Poor training & nutrition decisions produce poor results.

So, how come when I go to the gym this afternoon, I can pretty much guarantee that I am going to see a lot of intelligent, well-educated, gainfully employed people making some pretty stupid training decisions?

Maybe fitness training is rocket science?

Maybe I am some sort of fitness training genius.

So, as a public service to all of the non-fitness-training genii out there, here is a list of some of the training mistakes I will probably see at the gym today.

Try and avoid them.

1. Doing Cardio Training before Resistance Training
2. Doing Static Stretching before Resistance Training
3. Training Core before Legs
4. Chugging a Gatorade while reading a book on the Exercise Bike
5. Thinking that the Inner Thigh (Adductor) Machine is going to work some sort of magic.
6. Ignoring your Weaknesses and over-training your Strengths
7. Believing that Core Training is all about Crunches & Planks
8. Training Body Parts instead of Body Movements
9. Believing that you can Out-Train a Bad Diet
10. Making chronic neck & shoulder pain worse by ignoring your postural muscles
11. Thinking that Resistance Training will make you too big
12. Thinking that Cardio training will make you too small
13. Performing a one size fits all type of fitness program

And if you see yourself on the list and want to change your evil ways, feel free to comment.

I or one of your fellow readers would be glad to lend a hand.

Addendum

I just received an email from a quasi-famous strength coach/trainer to the stars telling me that I was an idiot for believing that cardio prior to resistance training is a bad idea.

Personally, I can’t believe that he took the time out of his day to tell me off via email (wouldn’t a comment have been quicker?) but I would like to thank him because it helped me come up with another fitness training mistake:

Dogma

Believing that one way of training is the 100% right and that all other methods are 100% wrong.

Whether it’s hardcore cardio junkies or Crosfitters or bodybuilders of Yoginis, being close minded to different training methods seems prety stupid to me.

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If you like what you see here, click here for updates

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• Tabata Training 101
• HIIT: The Aerobic version
• 4 Steps to a Great HIIT Workout
• Power training
• Muscular strength made simple
• Components of Physical Fitness

Not a pretty picture is it?

BAD NEWS

Abdominal Visceral Fat (aka Belly Fat) has been strongly linked to:

• Depression
• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Systemic Inflammation
• Diabetes
• Metabolic Syndrome
• Death

In a nutshell, a big gut is not a good thing.

GOOD NEWS

High Intensity (HIIT and/or HIRT) Training burns off belly fat faster than any other form of exercise.

The Magic of HIIT

The Science

Study # 1

In 2008, researchers took 27 middle-aged obese women with metabolic syndrome and subjected them to one of three exercise programs.

• Group 1 was the no-exercise control group
• Group 2 was the low intensity (aerobic) exercise group -
• Group 3 was the high intensity (HIIT) exercise group

Groups 2 & 3 performed 5 workouts per week @ 400 calories per workout.

After 16 weeks, the HIIT group had significantly reduced total abdominal fat, abdominal subcutaneous fat and most importantly abdominal visceral fat.

Sadly, Groups 1 & 2 saw no significant changes in fat loss.

Study # 2

In study #2, researchers took 45 normal women (mean BMI 23.22.0 kg m^-2 and age of 20.22.0 years) and subjected them to a 15 week HIIT exercise program.

As in the first study, the women were divided into 3 groups.

• Group 1 was the no-exercise control group
• Group 2 was the low intensity (aerobic) exercise group -
• Group 3 was the high intensity (HIIT) exercise group

After 15 weeks, both exercise groups demonstrated a significant improvement in cardiovascular fitness.

However, only the HIIT group had a significant reduction in:

• total body mass (TBM),
• fat mass (FM),
• trunk fat
• and fasting plasma insulin levels.

Reference

• Study #1 – ACSM
• Study #2 – International Journal of Obesity

Alan Ariail racing his NoCom - Photo: Dan Glatch

Tuesday’s Workouts

Workout # 1

• 20 min of HIIT sprints on the bike – 100% intensity (10:50 / 15:45 / 20:40) w 5 min warm-up & cool-down

Workout # 2

• 60 min of steady state cardio at intensity 6/10
• 10 min of stretching
• 20 min of meditation (approx time as time ceases to be linear in the meditative state…..ohmmmm

Let’s face it. Cardio is boring.

Running laps around a track or pedaling away like some spandex wearing gerbil.

Boring.

But,according to the authors of this new study, “your personal aerobic fitness is not something you will see in the mirror but it is an important predictor of your long-term health,”

“The most important part of physical activity is protecting yourself from diseases that can be fatal or play a significant role in increasing the risk factors for other metabolic diseases.”

The Study

Fatty Liver

For years, we have known that poor aerobic fitness is associated with obesity, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. This new study adds another serious condition to the list – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

The study also suggests that the resulting liver problems play a crucial step developing obesity-related illnesses. In fact, the study authors think that “Fatty liver disease will be the next big metabolic disorder associated with obesity and inactivity.”

So, to test the link between aerobic fitness and fatty liver disease, the researcher bred a strain of genetically unfit rats. These couch-potato rats could only run an average of 200m compared to over 1500m for the average fit rat.

Leaving both strains of rats to their own devices, the researchers noticed that at 25 weeks, the unfit rats showed clear signs of fatty liver. “By the end of their natural lives, the rats’ livers had sustained damage including fibrosis (the precursor to cirrhosis) and unexpected cell death”.

In contrast, the ‘fit’ group enjoyed heathy livers throughout their lifespans – despite the fact that neither group was getting any real exercise.

The team’s findings provide the first biochemical links between low aerobic fitness and fatty liver disease, and have lead the authors to suggest that NAFLD could potentially be treated or prevented by a suitable exercise program.

Conclusion

• Aerobic exercise is boring
• Aerobic exercise prevents fatty liver disease
• You don’t want fatty liver disease, so
• Get movin’

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According to a study published in the Journal of Physiology, it is possible to reap some of the athletic performance rewards of a carbo-load without actually eating any carbs.

The Science

Previous studies have shown that the presence of carbs in your mouth activates regions of the brain that can improve athletic performance.

The primary aim of this study was to see how “rinsing the mouth with solutions containing glucose and maltodextrin, disguised with artificial sweetener, would affect exercise performance”.

The secondary aim was to identify those regions of the brain activated by the sugars and artificial sweetener. A functional MRI (fMRI) machine was used to map the brain.

The Test

Prior to completing a cycling time trial, the eight volunteers rinsed their mouth out with a solution of glucose or maltodextrin or a placebo solution containing the artificial sweetener saccharin.

After the rinse, they hopped on their bikes and pedaled as hard and as fast as their legs could go.

Results

• In study 1A, test subjects “completed a cycle time trial significantly faster when rinsing their mouths with a 6.4% glucose solution compared with a placebo containing saccharin.”
• The corresponding fMRI study (1B) revealed that oral exposure to glucose activated reward-related brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex and striatum, which were unresponsive to saccharin.
• In study 2A, cyclists who rinsed with the maltodextrin solution once again outperformed their saccharin-swilling brethren.
• The second neuroimaging study (2B) “compared the cortical response to oral maltodextrin and glucose, revealing a similar pattern of brain activation in response to the two carbohydrate solutions, including areas of the insula/frontal operculum, orbitofrontal cortex and striatum”.

Conclusions

The results suggest that the improvement in exercise performance caused by the carbo-rinse may be due to the activation of brain regions believed to be involved in reward and motor control.

The findings also suggest that there may be a class of so far unidentified oral receptors that respond to carbohydrate independently of those for sweetness.

What does this mean to you?

• One of the primary benefits of cardio-vascular training is that fat is the primary choice of fuel.
• This is why cardio training is one of the most popular weight loss tools.
• However, a lot of trainees hurt their own cause by carbing up prior to a cardio session.
• Carbo-loading before a cardio session impairs the use of body-fat as fuel.
• It shifts you from being a fat-burner to a carb-burner

• However, because of this study, you can have the best of both worlds. The performance boosting effect of carbs combined with optimum fat burning.

Yay!

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If you like what you see here, click here for updates

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Reference

Journal of Physiology