How HIIT Workouts Can Benefit Your Prep…

Looking for HIIT Workouts?  HIIT is what’s known as High-Intensity Interval Training.  It’s alternating high and low-intensity cardio formats to burn more calories and fat at a very fast rate. These workouts can be a very effective way of burning calories, body fat, boost your metabolic rate, and breaking plateaus.

An example of a high-intensity workout is to alternate 1 minute of sprinting with 2 minutes of jogging for 10-20 minutes. This is what’s known as a 1:2 ratio (1 blast : 2 recovery).

Some more precise benefits of HIIT workouts are:

• HIIT workouts gives a 10% increase in calories burned in 24 hours as opposed to slow cardio at a steady state.

• It burns 3 times the calories and fat while at the same time decreasing fat production.

• The workouts allow you to hold on to lean muscle tissue while you burn body fat, in turn, boosting your metabolism.

• It provides a 30% increase in fat oxidation that melts body fat.

• HIIT reduces abdominal and subcutaneous fat 10% faster than endurance cardio.

Short Yet Effective Fat Burning Cardio Workouts

Yes, HIIT workouts are fun, they are shorter.  However, they are indeed harder and more effective.  You will be burning 3 times the calories and body fat than the figure competitor next to you straight jogging on the treadmill next to you for hours on end.

SimplyShredded.com discusses a recent study, out of Australia, which reported that a group of females who followed a 20-minute HIIT program consisting of eight-second sprints followed by 12 seconds of rest lost an amazing six times more body fat than a group that followed a 40-minute cardio program performed at a constant intensity of 60% MHR.

HIIT was primarily created by track coaches to prepare and train their runners. In the mid 1990’s, Bill Phillips introduced and popularized this fat slaying cardio workout to the fitness industry. Bodybuilders and fitness enthusiast latched on and began dropping body fat like crazy.

It’s true. HIIT workouts can help you shave off that layer after layer of stubborn body fat allowing you to get lean and defined for your figure contest.  Many forms of cardio are effective for dropping the pounds, and HIIT seems to be one of the top choices among athletes and those looking to get fit quickly.

Jim Stoppani, Ph.D, discusses a high-intensity interval training study; “A 1994 study from Laval University (Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada) reported that subjects following a 15-week HIIT program lost significantly more body fat than those following a 20-week continuous steady-state endurance program, despite the fact that the steady-state program burned about 15,000 calories more than the HIIT program during exercise.”

HIIT Workouts for Figure Prep

To lose body fat you need to be in a caloric deficit mode. You enter this mode by either increasing cardio or eating less.

This type of cardio format burns a tremendous amount of calories in a very short amount of time. It also continues to burn a great amount of calories up to an hour after your cardio session or until you eat a meal. Overall, high-intensity interval training gives your metabolic rate a huge boost so you burn more calories over a 24 hour span.

Start your cardio workout plan off by doing 20 minutes, 3 times a week. Advance it every 2 weeks by adding 5 minutes. After 6 weeks add another day of HIIT so you are doing 4 days of HIIT. Once you can master 4 days of HIIT for 30 minutes change your ratio up from 1:2 (blast : recover) to 2:1. Any ratio change you implement will be a change to keep your cardio effective.

If possible, do your high-intensity intervals on a separate day from your weight training. If you have to do HIIT on the same day as your weight training, do your weight training first, then do your cardio.

Example of an Effective HIIT Schedule:

HIIT workouts are challenging .  Even so, they can be performed on the treadmill, the stepmill, the stepper, the bike, the elliptical, etc.  Anything you can get creative with cardio-wise, use it.

Below is an example of how a high-intensity session would look:

Improve Your Fat Burning Effectiveness

Tip #1 – When you get to doing HIIT for 4 days a week for 30 minutes and changed up your ratio, you can further advance your fat loss program with by doing it first thing in the morning, after having a scoop of whey protein to spare your lean muscle tissue.

Tip #2 – Try increasing the intensity of your cardio format. If you are doing HIIT on a treadmill, try increasing the incline 5% every few weeks. If you are doing HIIT on the elliptical, stepmill, or a stationary bike, try increasing the tension a degree or two every few weeks.

Tip #3 – You can also get the fat burning advantage by supplementing correctly. L-Carnitine is a great supplement to mobilized and burn body fat. Take 2 grams of liquid L-Carnitine immediately before cardio to burn more body fat faster.

Don’t Miss The Most Important Factor

Now that you have some good HIIT tips to improve your cardio workouts you can start to make some progress.  You can advance your fat burning progress by joining over 73,000 others.  Get in on my Contest Prep Crash Course so you can transform.  Be the first to get these insider lessons…