My point is that – if you live a busy and stressful life, adding a bunch of 60-minute HIIT workouts every week might be too much.
“If you do too much HIIT, after a while your mind will start to lag behind,” says Thurman. “You’ll feel tired, fatigued, and not look forward to your workout. If you’re not mentally invested, your performance will suffer, as well as your form, and that can again lead to overuse and injury.” So how much HIIT should I do?
How Long Should a HIIT Workout Last? This seems to be the million-dollar question these days. According to a popular NY Times article, there is research that supports the idea that all you need is 7 minutes. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve had clients tell me they go to hour-long HIIT classes at the gym.
There are a lot of ways to do HIIT wrong, which not only leads to injury and fatigue but also prevents you from accomplishing your goals. Here are ten common HIIT mistakes trainers see all the time, plus how you can fix them. You’re skipping your warmup or cooldown.
How long should a HIIT workout be?
For many, a 30-minute HIIT workout is the ideal session length. Workouts such as LES MILLS GRIT. are carefully crafted so that your heart rate reaches specific training zones for a certain proportion of the workout, which means your heart rate is likely to reach 90 percent maximum for a period of 15 minutes.
The first thing to remember is that HIIT is not for everyone. Gottschall recommends that you only introduce HIIT after at least six months of consistent exercise, doing a mix of cardio and resistance training across five days a week.
If you want the transformative effects of HIIT, intensity is imperative – basically, you need to go hard! It doesn’t make sense to do more HIIT workouts at a lower intensity, as dropping the intensity can mean your training shifts into the vigorous-intensity interval-based training category (which is often defined as 70-85 percent maximum heart rate) or even the moderate-intensity cardio space. Consequently, you don’t get the same transformative benefits of a true HIIT workout.
If you’re serious about maximizing the benefits of HIIT use a heart rate monitor, such as the (Polar A370 with H10 chest transmitter) to track your heart rate and ensure you don’t exceed time in the 90 percent maximum zone for more than 40 minutes in a week.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has made its name as a fitness game-changer, and there are plenty of studies highlighting its remarkably transformative effects. The results come from going as hard as you can for a short period of time, resting, and then repeating. It’s a formula that allows you to keep reaching your maximum training zone again and again, shocking your body each and every workout.
There are many factors that make HIIT so effective, including pushing your heart rate into a specific training zone; impact forces greater than ten times your body weight; and performing exercises until failure. Because of these extreme characteristics, says Gottschall, it is imperative to adequately recover between sessions.
You can easily establish your own max heart rate by deducting your age from 220. So, if you’re 28, your approximate max heart rate will be 192 (and you will reach the 90 percent maximum zone when your heart rate hits 173).
Is HIIT good for you?
HIIT workouts have got a lot of good things going for them . They serve double duty to build strength and spike your heart rate, and are so short and effective that you only need 20 free minutes to squeeze a solid session into your day. But according to new research, too much HIIT may actually be doing your body a disservice.
At first, doing moderate amounts of HIIT, improved their performance and their bodies were producing more mitochondria, which you may remember from biology class is the “powerhouse” of the cells.
This isn’t the first time that science has suggested that going overboard on HIIT may be a problem. Because these workouts tend to involve a lot of jumping, they have a well-earned reputation for being not-so-good on your joints.
What Is HIIT?
HIIT workouts involve short bursts of intense exercise followed by periods of rest or active recovery. You work at or above your VO2 max—or even harder during a similar style of training called SMIT—to promote rapid improvements in conditioning.
HIIT workouts are intense—after all, “high-intensity” is part of the name. But according to Tumminello, if you push your body at this level too frequently, it may break down. Like any other exercise or method of training, there will be consequences if you do too much.
It all comes down to your individual needs. If you want to lose weight or improve your general fitness, Tumminello recommends no more than three HIIT workouts per week. If you’re also strength training, do no more than two HIIT workouts to account for the demands of your other training sessions.