- Vocabulary, Terms, and Idioms
- H.I.I.T – High Intensity Interval Training
- intensity – in (put into) + tens (stretch or strain), “great, extreme”
- interval – inter (between) + val (space between), “an intervening (inter + ven, to come) time or space.”
- (idiom) downside – disadvantage or cost: “The downside? Even though H.I.I.T. lasts only minutes, the workouts are tough, requiring you to push your body near its limit.”
- (idiom) upside – advantage or benefit: “The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.”
- H.I.I.T – High Intensity Interval Training
What Is H.I.I.T? Short Workouts 101
High-intensity interval training — referred to as H.I.I.T. — is based on the idea that short bursts of strenuous exercise can have a big impact on the body. If moderate exercise — like a 20-minute jog — is good for your heart, lungs and metabolism, H.I.I.T. packs the benefits of that workout and more into a few minutes. It may sound too good to be true, but learning this exercise technique and adapting it to your life can mean saving hours at the gym. If you think you don’t have time to exercise, H.I.I.T. may be the workout for you. You can try it with any aerobic activity you like. The principles of H.I.I.T. can be applied to running, biking, stair climbing, swimming, jumping rope, rowing, even hopping or skipping. (Yes, skipping!) The downside? Even though H.I.I.T. lasts only minutes, the workouts are tough, requiring you to push your body near its limit.
How Intense Is High Intensity?
High-intensity exercise is obviously not a casual stroll down the street, but it’s not a run-till-your-lungs-pop explosion, either. Think breathless, not winded. Heart-pounding, not exploding. Legs pumping, but not uncontrolled. You don’t need any fancy heart rate monitors to do these workouts. Use cues from your body as a guide. In the middle of a high-intensity workout you should be able to say single words, but not complete whole sentences. So, if you can keep chatting to your workout partner during this workout, pump it up a few notches.
(From the NY Times: The Scientific 7-Minute Workout)
Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice.
An article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal does just that. In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.
“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.
Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.
Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.
The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.
This column appears in the May 12 issue of The New York Times Magazine.
- Got 4 minutes? NY Times: The 4-Minute Workout
- If you don’t really like doing push-ups or wall sits, you can still benefit from H.I.I.T. Try this 4-minute burst of fitness:
1. Warm up briefly.
2. Run, swim or bike intensely for four minutes.
3. Stop. Catch your breath.
Repeat three times a week.
JosephEnglish-G 