HIIT Training

Whether you’re 20lbs overweight or 5lbs overweight, a HIIT training routine can help you burn belly fat fast. I feel that it is the best cardio for weight loss. While you can achieve your weight loss goal by combining diet, strength training, and even steady state cardio, HIIT can take your fat burning to the next level.

HIIT, or "high intensity interval training" is the most effective workout technique you can do. The basic principle of HIIT is working your body hard and fast for a short burst, then giving it a bit of a rest with an active recovery period. For instance, sprinting for 30 seconds then jogging or walking for 1 minute would be a standard rep set. You would repeat this process a number of times to get the best workout.

A HIIT workout offers myriad benefits. First, HIIT provides a great workout for your legs. Unless you want bulging leg muscles, you shouldn't need to do strength training for your legs if you perform a HIIT workout a few times a week. And, of course, HIIT cranks up the fat burning potential of your body! Periods of strenuous activity causes the body to release fatty acids into the bloodstream. HIIT workouts also increase the level of HGH in your system. HGH is a hormone that burns fat while preserving muscle. And if that wasn't enough to convince you, HIIT also puts the body into EPOC mode, which is a state where the body continues to burn calories at an accelerated rate even after the workout is over.

HIIT is not a perfect system. A big disadvantage is that this cannot be done every day. It is easy to over train your body if you're doing strength training for your leg muscles in addition to HIIT. If you have worn your muscles out the day before, you should engage in a slower, steady rate cardio workout to follow up.

There are a few components of HIIT that you can vary.   The first is the length of the sprint intervals.   Shorter intervals of 15-30 seconds allow you to exert more effort during the sprints.  This increased exertion will help release more HGH into your system.  Additionally, these shorter intervals will release more fatty acids into the bloodstream.

Longer intervals of greater than 30 seconds require more perceived effort.  The longer intervals will burn more calories. Longer, high intensity intervals also allow glycogen levels in the muscles to be depleted which causes the body to turn to stored fat for its energy supply. 

The length of your recovery period is also important in an HIIT workout. During this lower intensity portion of your workout you may walk or job to give your muscles time to recover. You spend a certain amount of recovery time relative to the amount of sprint time. If your sprint interval is 30 seconds and your recovery interval is also 30 seconds, you have a 1:1 ratio. If instead, you sprint interval is 15 seconds and your recovery interval is 45 seconds you have a 3:1 ratio.

When your recovery interval is longer, 2 or 3:1 for example, your high intensity interval can be more strenuous.    This increased effort will again result in a stronger HGH release.  And giving yourself a longer recovery interval will reduce the risk of over-training your muscles.

A short recovery relative to the sprint interval (1:1) results in lactic acid buildup, glycogen depletion, and a greater after-burn effect (EPOC).   However, this can lead to a greater risk of overtraining.

The HIIT training routine that provides the best cardio for weight loss makes use of both high and low intensity activity to provide a high HGH release, increased calorie burning and the release of fatty acids. Begin with a short interval of high intensity activity combined with a longer duration of recovery. For these intervals, you sprint 15 seconds and recover (jog) for 45 seconds. This is the method that will release fatty acids and increase the level of HGH into your system. Combine 8 sets of these moves with a warm up that lasts 2 minutes so that your total workout time is approximately 10 minutes.

For the second phase, I perform 25 minutes of steady state cardio (light paced jog or exercise bike). This allows your muscles to remain active, and still have a recovery period. Additionally, steady state cardio helps burn the fatty acids that short interval HIIT released into the bloodstream.

The final portion of your workout is doing long interval HIIT with short recovery intervals. This will fully deplete your body of glycogen allowing for a greater after-burn effect and fat burning once your workout is complete. I perform 1 minute sprint intervals with 1 minute of jogging. You won't want to exert yourself so much for the sprint intervals here as your muscles will already be tired. This final portion should be about 10 minutes as well.

So there you have a 45 minute HIIT workout that I believe is the best cardio for weight loss. No matter how close or how far you are to your target weight, this routine will help you to burn more belly fat and reach your weight loss goals.