James Driver - HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training Explained

Copyright Information Page

Copyright 2013 by James Driver. All rights reserved worldwide.

No part of this publication may be replicated, redistributed, or given away in any form without the prior written consent of the author/publisher or the terms relayed to you herein.

James Driver

UK

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

Table of Contents

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Part 1

Introduction To HIIT

Introduction

Thank you for picking up your copy of HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training Explained by me, James Driver.

Who is this book for and what is it intending to achieve?

This book is for those who would like to improve their fitness, lose weight, improve sports performance or simply have fun engaging in the most enjoyable and most beneficial form of aerobic/anaerobic exercise there is.

This book is primarily for those whore new to HIIT, however intermediate and even more advanced participants will also gain a wealth of knowledge from this book.

After reading this book, youll have the knowledge and confidence to create your own HIIT workouts designed to meet your own goals.

In this book were going to discuss the following:

• What is HIIT?
• The benefits of HIIT when compared to other methods of exercise such as continuous training.
• The different HIIT protocols.
• The required HIIT intensities, durations and frequencies.
• HIIT modes as well as specific HIIT exercises.
• HIIT best practices.
• Creating your own HIIT workouts geared towards helping you achieve your goals in a time span that I believe no other form of training can beat.
• And more.

So what are my credentials?

Ive been a personal trainer for many years as well as a keen advocate and participant of HIIT. I know full well the benefits that HIIT has brought my personal training clients and the benefits that HIIT brings over and above all other forms of training such as continuous training.

Im intending to keep this book as short as possible; there will be no filler or fluff. As Im sure youd agree, the best place to be is not reading a book, but is instead in the park or gym doing some HIIT.

Lets begin the journey.

What Is HIIT?

As the name implies - HIIT, also known as Interval Training (IT) or Sprint Interval Training (SIT) consists of a set number of high intensity exercises, each immediately followed by periods of recovery. The high intensity exercises can range anywhere from between 5 or 10 seconds to 5 or 10 minutes. Likewise the periods of recovery can range in duration too.

HIIT also enables you to mix up the intensities of your high intensity periods as well as your recovery periods.

By keeping everything varied during a workout, your training session remains considerably more interesting when compared to continuous training (CT). During the course of this book, I will be referring to CT many times. Im sure youre aware of what CT is however, just to clarify CT usually involves exercising at the same intensity for the entire duration of the exercise session; for example, jogging, cycling or swimming at the same speed or intensity for 45 minutes or more.

To attain the maximum benefits from HIIT, with the least time investment, ideally the high intensity exercise periods should be extremely intense, as intense as you can possibly make them. They should fatigue you quickly and you should give them everything you have. However this will only last for a very short duration as exercising at high intensity for extended periods is difficult. This will be due to the rapid build-up of lactic acid as well as a depletion of creatine phosphate (CP) stores, an energy compound in your muscles that powers the body when engaged in extreme high intensity activity. This combination will prevent you from exercising any longer at your current high intensity, at which point a recovery period will be required.

The recovery period should involve light exercise such as walking, gentle jogging or cycling at an easier pace. This will stop blood pooling in your legs, something which happens following exercise without a cool down. The recovery period also assists in the removal of metabolic waste products such as lactic acid. During this time, CP stores will also be replenished, enabling the body to perform high intensity work again, such as sprinting or high intensity cycling. The recovery period is used to prepare the participant for the next high intensity period of exercise which should soon be approaching.

The variables which can be manipulated during a HIIT workout are as follows:

• Duration (time or distance) of high intensity interval.
• Intensity (speed, resistance) of high intensity interval.
• Duration of recovery interval.
• Intensity of recovery interval.
• Number of repetitions of both high intensity interval and recovery interval.
• Mode of workout (running, cycling, rowing etc).

All of this will be discussed in great detail throughout the course of this book.

Why Does HIIT Work So Well? An Evolutionary Look

As living beings, working in intervals is much more natural than working at the same pace constantly. If you think about it, when in our daily lives do we ever work at the same intensity?

From waking up to going to bed, our work rate and heart rates fluctuate all day long. Since our activities change constantly, so does the blood flow around our bodies to supply oxygen and energy to the working muscles when its in need.

As we were evolving, our bodies learned to use a greater proportion of energy by performing tasks in intervals over performing the exact same task at a steady and constant pace. During the course of any one day; hunting and gathering, climbing, walking and carrying would all involve intermittent bouts of short bursts of high intensity activity. In addition, escaping danger would involve the same kind of short burst, high intensity activity. This was a survival mechanism since we never knew when we would be attacked by predators in such a dangerous world. Our bodies needed to have an explosion of energy ready for us when we were required to run hell for leather from wolves, bears, other animal predators or even from our deadly spear wielding ancestors from rival tribes. Im sure you can relate to the fact that developing the ability to run long distances at a steady pace would not have enabled our ancestors to catch prey or escape predators. However, developing the ability to sprint short distances at an extremely fast pace certainly would have.

HIIT is what comes naturally. It should therefore be no surprise that we experience superior benefits using HIIT over CT. If you feel the need to relate HIIT to a more modern perspective then simply think about children and what they naturally do in the playground when playing with other children. Do children play at the same pace for an hour at a time? Or do they instead run around for a few seconds or minutes and then stop for a rest? Obviously its the latter. Its clear that short bursts of high intensity activity is hardwired into our genetics.

As a consequence and to reiterate, we burn more calories naturally by performing any task in intervals over performing the same task at the same rate for a prolonged period of time. This is true as long as the interval reaches a high intensity, such as if you were running away from a spear wielding ancestor. In fact, the higher the intensity the better for your fitness related goals, whatever they are.