No matter how much we loath to admit it, we all know that cardiovascular exercise is good for us.
It boosts heart health, lowers blood pressure, aids better lung capacity, weight management and mental health, but let’s face it, not all of us have the time – or the inclination – to commit to a 30-minute run or an hour-long walk around the countryside.
So, what if we told you that you could get all those benefits and more in just 10 minutes — no fancy equipment needed?
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is all about working as hard as you can for a short period of time before taking a short rest and doing it all over again.
As Steve Doidge-Harrison, personal trainer and cofounder of Bio Skin & Wellness, tells Metro.co.uk: ‘Simply put, you do a series of exercises, at a very high intensity, interspersed with short recovery intervals.
‘The exercises can consist of anything from cardio, body-weight or weighted movements. The ‘work’ (exercise) and ‘rest’ (recovery) periods can vary from 10 seconds to over a minute.
‘HIIT could be considered the best “bang-for-your-buck” type of training there is.’
The main advantage to HITT over LISS (low-intensity steady-state cardio), says Steve, ‘is that you are getting fitter as well as healthier’.
‘Regular walking will improve your general state of physical and mental wellbeing but, you’re unlikely to get fitter,’ he adds.
‘HIIT will also improve various aspects of fitness, your strength, and bone density, for example. There is even evidence that HIIT training can enhance cognition and memory! With that said, the key to any health intervention is consistency. Unless you can stick to something long-term, it won’t do much good.’
The benefits of HIIT are pretty decent: it’s time-efficient, you get results fast and you feel amazing afterwards.
But before you get too excited, it’s important to recognise that while HIIT is great, it isn’t the be all and end all.
As Steve explains, you can only really do HIIT a couple of times a week – because of how intense it is — and it should be coupled with other forms of exercise, like low intensity steady state cardio (LISS), like running or walking to see long-term results.
Not to mention, training HIIT all the time may lead to burn out and your motivation may dwindle if you’re not working towards a long term goal, like running a 5K, for example.
All that being said, if you’re time poor and looking for a way to fit exercise into your routine, Steve’s HIIT workout could be exactly what you’re looking for.
All you need to do is set your timer for as long as you’ve got (10 to 20 minutes is optimal – you shouldn’t be able to do a HIIT workout for longer than that) and repeat the circuit as many times as you can in the allotted time.
Spend three minutes warming up with gentle cardio such as jogging on the spot or skipping.
Be sure to start slow and build intensity over the three minutes.
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2023-11-15T05:26:02Z dg43tfdfdgfd