Wow that's awesome. Sadly, truely sadly, I think you're on shaky ground posting those for others to get. Just a warning in case you weren't aware.

cool stuff brendan.

i've found that my heart starts to race, just before the high intensity part of HIIT. i'll be sitting there, cycling, looking at the time on the display. when it gets up to just 5 seconds before the intense part, i can feel my heart pounding in my chest. it's the same feeling i get right before a race or competition.

i'm a HIIT addict.

drink your fluids slowly after HIIT.

i did my most intense workout on saturday night with hiit. the intervals were 30sec/30sec. on the high intensity part, i went all out, as fast as i could. i was gasping for air by the time i finished. i spent a good amount of time recovering. my legs were burning. i drank some gatorade and water. apparently a little too quickly. i walked past the bathroom, and what little smell there was happened to drift up my nose. i was fortunate enough to get a warning gag, then everything i'd eaten that day came up to say hello.

the moral of the story: drink slowly. don't go near smelly places. don't eat doritos b4 working out (you might be blowing them out your nose later).

just another tip for people interested in trying HIIT. i'd also suggest not going all out the first time you try it. build your way up to a very intense workout.

holy thread revival batman!

i just tried HIIT the first time this morning (at least i think you would call it HIIT). i ran (dead run) for 30 sec, walked for 30, equaled out at about 5 minutes or 1/2 mile. then i jogged the 1/2 back to my starting point.

i have 5 more pounds till i reach 190, so we'll see how doing this 3 times a week helps. will doing HIIT help your distance running/endurance as well?

later

edit: i just read this:



thanks joel, thanks for that visual!

30 min of HIIT

ring out shirt

feel like you ran for an hour

its a matter of preferance, I like it because it incorperates anarobic with arobic in a single exercise

I mix up HIIT with "standard intervals" during the week; I try to get cardio in every day.

The HIIT days feel great; I'm completely wiped after doing 15 minutes (15 intervals) of work (not counting warm up and cooldown) if I treat the sprints like I'm being chased (I like to think "OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT AND WHY IS IT CHASING ME" during those sprints.) I am physically unable to sustain those sprints for more than 15 seconds because I'm going ALL OUT. Basically I'm just doing wind sprints on an elliptical and, by definition, a sprint is not something you should be able to sustain (if I can sustain my speed/energy for 30 seconds or more, I'm not pushing nearly hard enough; for me, at that point it's just a fast run and not a sprint, but that's a personal decision and, by no means, any standard that anyone else should conform to). I round out the minute at a brisk pace to let my legs/heart rest and then when the seconds show 00 again I sprint.

As far as my "normal" cardio days, I go with 2 minute work intervals and 2 minute rest intervals for 30-45 minutes. I definitely feel like the HIIT days are working me harder (and, consequently I feel like they are burning more fat, but that's a gut feeling and, in no way, scientific); my body fat % has dropped about 1.5% since I started doing this mix of HIIT and "standard" intervals ~2 weeks ago.

A couple notes about HIIT; everything I've read and everyone I talked to has basically recommended that you don't do HIIT sessions more than 20 times a month (I do 3-4 a week) and while HIIT is great for "explosive" bursts of speed/energy which are great for the sports I play (basketball and football) and arguably, fat burning, it doesn't do as much for your endurance as a long duration run; so if you're training for a marathon (or a 5k like me) then you're doing yourself a disservice if you focus entirely on HIIT.

all this comes down to what you want out of your workout, if you want to be a fighter or something that uses anaerobic style motions, you should definitely concentrate on HIIT, but if you just want to be healthy and fit, it might be a good idea to use a good mix

Definitely mix it up like David said; the more you do that the harder it is for your body to adapt to one particular type of exercise so you reduce the chance/duration of plateauing.