Effective fat loss in the gym

This is going to be a 2 part post for you about High Intensity Interval Training VS. the typical steady state cardio.
But being the nice guy I am I will give you the good news first to get you burning fat more effectively. Some of you who have known me for awhile and have trained with me know what I am talking about, or you should! Ok so what is high intensity interval training for those of you who have not heard about it before? The great thing about HIIT is that in studies it has been proven to be more effective for burning off that stubborn fat you just can not get rid of for up to 24-36 hours after you work out. That is right! So if you were to perform a HIIT session right now that means tomorrow at 9am or even after you will still be burning off fat from today's work out. It also has been shown to increase the flow of oxygen consumption into the blood stream, and the best thing about it you can do all this in just 15 minutes!! So no more boring 30, 45, or even 60 minute cardio sessions. Come on who wants to spend all that time in the gym doing cardio? I know I do not so I choose the shorter and MORE effective strategy. Ok so now your asking yourself how do I do this amazing fat burning work out? Well keep your pants on I am about to tell you.

HIIT comprised of your warm up and then short bursts if very high intensity work with short recovery periods repeated anywhere from 5-10 minutes followed by a cool down. Yeah its that simple! So here is an example hop onto a bike or for those of you who want to do this outside find a grass field or a track, something that is more forgiving than the cement or asphalt on your legs. Do about a 5 minute warm up at about 50% of your full out effort. After you warm up your intervals will be made up of 30 second of 100% all out max effort(run or peddle as fast as you possibly can) then 60 seconds of active rest. So walk walk around if your outside or on the bike just peddle at a moderate pace about your 50% again. Then back up again for 30 seconds and so on. After 5-10 minutes I want you to do a 5 minute cool down. Remember the key is to push as hard as you can for those 30 seconds, if you can only do 5 minutes at first great, if you can do more go for 10. If at the end of the work out you feel alright and could have done more than 10 minutes, you are not pushing yourself hard enough. Here is a video so you can see the intensity I want out of you.

That is the intensity you should put into your work out if your inside the gym or outside the gym. Also a quick note for you treadmill bunnies this is not a great tool to use with the treadmill to make it most effective because you can not speed up or slow down the treadmill fast enough. Watch out for Part 2 of the Effective fat loss post and I will tell you why steady state cardio is not as effective as HIIT for fat loss or as good for your body and cardiovascular health as you might think. Untill then get your ass up and start HIITing ;).

P.S. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend.