- The physiological science behind HIIT demonstrates that switching between varying intensity levels and exercise types allows one’s body to build muscle, lose fat, and increase aerobic capacity. It’s an effective way to build endurance, strength, and flexibility quickly.
- The goal during a HIIT workout is to hit a targeted percentage of one’s maximum heart rate during each workout. This goal heart rate usually ranges from 60-90%. Reaching this goal heart rate through interval training results in improved cardiovascular endurance.
- Medical research shows HIIT workouts are linked to great improvements in the amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise, otherwise known as VO2 max. Your VO2 max medically correlates to an athlete’s overall endurance ability.
- HIIT workouts have been shown to greatly increase strength and boost muscle development. Just as with the endurance studies, medical research has demonstrated that increased muscle development from HITT happens very rapidly
- Medical studies demonstrate that HIIT workouts can promote better heart health, build strength, lose fat, and increase endurance.
- Ramping up the intensity forces your body to tap into its anaerobic system for energy, because it can’t supply the oxygen required to work aerobically quickly enough; in the recovery intervals, your body reverts to its aerobic system. As the session goes on, your body relies less on the anaerobic system, because quick-release energy sources of phosphocreatine and glycogen (glucose stored in your muscles) become depleted. Your body will therefore start to rely more on the aerobic system, which releases energy more sustainably but slowly from fat. You won’t be able to achieve quite as high an intensity as you could at the start, but You’re essentially using a mixture of the anaerobic and aerobic systems, so you get an improvement in both.
- Respiring anaerobically has after burn effects. This excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, which is more pronounced with HIIT than continuous exercise, burns a further 6 to 15 per cent more calories as your body replenishes itself.
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