Now, this has been a controversial topic, but it's one that I feel strongly about. If you complete endurance training (ET), which means steady state type of workouts you will most likely experience results over time. However, because you are at a steady state, by definition your heart is not getting the best workout and your results will be... steady (read - flat).
According to the Mayo Clinic, these are the calorie amounts burning for walking 1 hour. As we've discussed in the past, total calories burned depends a lot upon your weight.
| Activity (1-hour duration) | Weight of person and calories burned | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 160 pounds (73 kilograms) | 200 pounds (91 kilograms) | 240 pounds (109 kilograms) | |
| Walking, 2 mph | 183 | 228 | 273 |
| Walking, 3.5 mph | 277 | 346 | 414 |
While 183 calories seems like a reasonable amount, and picking up the pace a bit will net you a nice burn, this just doesn't seem like enough to me for 60 minutes worth of work.
Enter HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training
This type of workout is one in which you cycle for a set period of time, pushing yourself to your limit and then recovering and repeating. HIIT workouts can be done for any type of cardio. (Walking, running, elliptical, workout DVDs, etc)
While there has been much debate about how much more efficient HIIT workouts are, for most people the answer is found in simple math:
If you walk briskly for an hour at the same pace... your heart rate will say at the same pace. Take that same exercise and turn it into a HIIT workout.
1) Walk briskly for 5 minutes to warm up
2) Run at full speed for 2 minutes
3) Walk briskly for 2 minutes
In if you repeat 2 and 3, in about 30 minutes time, you could burn the same amount of calories (or more) than the hour workout at a steady pace. This is because when you go all out your heart rate will rise and it will continue to stay up when you start to reduce your speed. You will have a short period of recovery, your heart rate will lower, and then the process starts over. Because of the periods of exertion and the time that it takes for your heart rate to recover, your average heart rate for the workout (and subsequently your calorie burn) will be significantly higher. So, if you are short on time, you could push yourself to the max and receive nearly the same kind of burn. It's a matter of working harder and smarter, not longer.
Here is a personal example using one of my favorite workouts called Turbo Fire:
1) Workout Turbo 60, which is 60 minutes of working out (and actually has a few quick intervals thrown in the middle) netted 711 calories burned
2) With a corresponding HIIT workout from the same set, I burned 368 in only 20 minutes. So I burned more than half the calories in less than half the time!
It has been debated that HIIT workouts create a condition called EPOC (Excessive Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) - presumably due to all of that huffing and puffing that you did at your max, which continues to help you burn calories long after you've completed your workout. It is also said that these types of workouts burn more fat than steady state.
Regardless of the debate, it's clear that HIIT workouts burn more calories in less time and interval training is also good for your heart and lungs, basically training them to recovering from taxing events. And finally, it will help the rest of your cardio seem much easier when you aren't working at a breakneck speed.
We all know that I'm no doctor, but just to be clear, HIIT workouts are not for you if you have heart, breathing or other conditions, but for the rest of you.... Go for HIIT!
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