High Intensity Exercises – How to Do High Intensity Exercises

We live in a society dominated by stress and haste. We want to train but we don’t have time, almost not even to eat. Last minute meetings, going to pick up our children and a thousand other reasons serve to summarize our day to day. Therefore, high-intensity exercises are ideal to reach everything and not run out of our daily training routine. Just 15-20 minutes a day will be enough to continue with our work plan with the pleasure of having trained.

What are high-intensity exercises?

High-intensity exercises, also known as HIIT (high-intensity interval training), allow you to alternate moments of high intensity (with anaerobic exercises) with others of low or medium intensity, and other moments of complete rest. They are ideal for those people who want to tone their body and strengthen their muscles, but do not want to spend too much time and want to avoid those famous marathon sessions in the fitness room.

It is possible to implement this type of training in all kinds of places, whether at home, in the gym, in the office or in a simple park. Its secret is to combine short intervals of high-intensity work, with others of lower pulsations. With this scheme, it is possible to maximize the results obtained using less time. Come on, it is much more efficient than in any type of normal routine where we would need more time to achieve the same goals.

However, despite needing little time (HIIT workouts can range from 5 to 45, although the average is between 15 and 20 minutes), the necessary physical base is high. Therefore, it is necessary to have a previous tour before starting this type of routine. Thus, it is also possible to reduce the risk of suffering any type of injury that leaves us in the dry dock. Over time, high-intensity exercises have been perfected with the emergence of variants such as HIPT (High Intensity Power Training), which focuses work on certain muscle groups leaving cardiovascular activity as complementary. From this type of variants emerged other disciplines as popular as crossfit, another of the strengths in the offer of the main gym chains worldwide.

Benefits of training at high intensity

A priori it may seem like another routine but high-intensity exercises, and this great variety of pulsations and need to adapt the different muscle groups, have enormous benefits for our body. The most prominent are the following:

• It allows you to train with very little time. One of the great excuses for not training is the lack of time to do so. HIIT debunks this myth. With just 15 or 20 minutes you can perform a complete routine.
• High-intensity exercises allow you to burn more fat. According to a Trapp study, conducted on three groups of women (the first without training, the second after performing traditional cardio and the last training HIIT), it was concluded that high-intensity workouts promote fat burning up to 24 hours after the end of the routine.
• It does not burn muscle. Everyone who performs cardio, as a complement to muscle mass gain, is always with one eye open. Performing very long intervals of aerobic activity positively causes an oxidation of fats, but also of muscle. However, HIIT workouts allow you to keep muscle mass intact, while favoring the goodbye of fat reserves.
• Encourages a healthy lifestyle. HIIT favors a better breathing system and is less likely to suffer sudden death, which in running exercises continues as the half marathon or full marathon. In addition, this type of training also favors the production of growth hormone, which accelerates the calorie cream and slows down the aging of people (yes, as you hear, it allows you to be younger inside and out).

As if that were not enough, high-intensity exercises are also highly comfortable. They can be performed in any type of place, and do not require the use of almost material, as would happen in a dumbbell routine. You just need to give your body moments of high intensity over a period of 20 minutes. In addition, this type of training raises the adrenaline becoming a real challenge for the athlete.

How to do high-intensity exercise

However, there are multiple ways to implement high-intensity exercises. One of the most traditional HIIT routines consists of combining sets of squats, push-ups, sit-ups, strides and rope jumps for 15-20 minutes alternating each set with 30-second breaks. The idea is to take five exercises that encompass the main muscle groups such as the pectorals or arms, and repeat these series for a certain time with breaks between sets that should never exceed 30 seconds. In fact, you can further increase the intensity with a tabata-type workout. This routine lasts less time, between four and five minutes. However, it is 20 seconds per set and 10 seconds of rest. Four exercises are combined and repeated in two sets each for a total of eight sets in four minutes. It is very common in abdominal sessions.

If your goal is the toning of your body you should opt for a HIIT core routine. It is put into practice through different exercises to your liking, and as you feel more comfortable. An example would be to spend up to 12 minutes to achieve this goal by combining abdominal exercises in series of 50 seconds and 10 seconds. In this way you can perform a total of 12 series, that is, take four exercises and perform three sets of each. On the other hand, if your goal is to tone your bodybuilding exclusively you should apply the tabata method combining exercises such as push-ups, weight lifting, squats or burpees. It can even be combined with another type of training intended exclusively for lifting weights. However, it is necessary that this weight routine be before HIIT to avoid that the fatigue caused by high-intensity exercises can affect your performance.

On the other hand, if your only goal is to lose weight and lose that annoying fat from your body, HIIT also has a routine prepared specifically for fat burning. It is ideal and has multiple advantages over low-intensity cardio. Walking, jogging or cycling at a few revolutions you will lose half as much fat as half an hour of well-planned and performed high-intensity exercises. Thus, any type of training explained above would serve to activate your metabolism and start burning calories and, consequently, fat. Thus, if you combine this with a correct diet to lose weight you will find the most direct way to achieve your goals.

However, high-intensity exercises have a wide variety of utilities and can be adapted to a large number of different audiences. It does not matter if you want to lose weight, tone or gain muscle mass. The enormous number of possibilities offered by HIIT routines will allow you to achieve your goals in a simple and fun way. You will surely find your place in this training scenario.