Sunday, July 1, 2012

HIIT- The latest in fast fat loss!


I love acronyms; it makes me look so smart! Actually, it helps my stupid brain remember better, and masks my inability to remember long names. HIIT is one of them!

Naw, it's not your usual mosquito repellent acronym. Notice the additional I? HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, as the name suggests is training at a high intensity, and in intervals. Makes sense, no?

It didn't, to me. Hearing of HIIT as the latest buzz word in the fitness market got me confused. I then delved deeper, and hope that this article makes some sense to you!

This form of training is either a god gift for all the lazy people around, or a cool marketing gimmick to start off the lazy lards on SOME exercise at least.

High Intensity Interval Training suggests undergoing rigorous exercise for a short span, sometimes as short as 3-5 mins, and then rest for a minute.

Not to be confused with Circuit or Cross Fit training, whose repetitive, minimal rest exercises routines are different. By different, I mean, HIIT promoters like Timothy Ferriss encourage people to work out in high intensity for a short span of time, and not repeat it. Tim Ferris is a strong endorser of the 4 hour per month training (although he also recommends 22 odd supplements per day).

Different fitness Gurus like Chris Mohr, Sam Omedi, and our Good old Times of India's article describes this routine. The simplest way to go about it mentioned below:

For ten minutes daily, broken into two 5 minute routines, do some high intensity exercise which will bump up your heart rate and keep it elevated for those 5 minutes. Something like skipping, sprinting, swimming, climbing stairs, etc. 

Do this twice a day, that's all. I think this is a boon for our modern busy bees. While it may not lead to incredible Fat loss for some who don't care two hoots about what they insert in their stomach, I'm sure it will inculcate the exercising bug in us. I'm going to try it.

Are you?