By Paddy Doran
In the last few years high intensity interval training (HIIT) has been promoted by some as miracle training.
In this piece I will outline some facts around HIIR and share some of my own experience gained during 45 years of coaching cyclists of all abilities, including using HIIT.
What exactly is HIIT?
High intensity interval training has been around since the 1930s if not earlier in the form of ‘interval training’.
German athletics coaches were some of the first to use it. It has been used in sports training since then, to varying degrees.
It’s a system involving very intensive efforts with various recovery times between those efforts.
The efforts will be at a pace where there is little or no conversation possible and done at around maximum VO2 or above.
It has really come to the fore again because of research over the last number of years - mainly in the sedentary population - which has showed HIIT training can be very beneficial for some people.
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A major advantage is that it doesn’t take much time to complete a HIIT session; fitness improves quickly. The fitness and coaching industry have latched on to this.
One disadvantage is that it’s very intensive and painful, which makes it harder to sustain as a long-term programme.
What are the benefits of HIIT?
According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), HIIT training has been shown to improve:
- aerobic and anaerobic fitness
- blood pressure
- cardiovascular health
- insulin sensitivity (which helps the exercising muscles more readily use glucose for fuel to make energy)
- cholesterol profiles
- abdominal fat and body weight while maintaining muscle mass.
Benefits of aerobic exercise?
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ACSM defines aerobic exercise as “any activity that uses large muscle groups, can be maintained continuously, and is rhythmic in nature.” It is a type of exercise that overloads the heart and lungs and causes them to work harder than at rest.
Benefits of aerobic exercise
- Increases the efficiency of respiration
- Improves blood volume, distribution, and delivery to muscles
- Improves cardiovascular efficiency
- Increases the stroke volume, or the amount of blood pumped from the ventricle during each contraction of the heart
- Increases cardiac output, or the volume of blood pumped by the heart each minute
- Decreases resting heart rate
- Improves the condition and efficiency of breathing muscles
- Improves the efficiency of movement
- Improves the body’s ability to use fat as an energy source
- Improves body composition by decreasing body fat
- Strengthens muscles
- Strengthens ligaments, tendons and bones
- Helps decrease the risk of developing coronary artery disease, cancer and diabetes
- Helps decrease anxiety and stress
- Helps you feel better overall
(You can read more by following this link)
So we can see that there are benefits to be gained by HIIT and from aerobic training.
As I mentioned earlier HIIT is around for a long time. When I look back at my notes from the 1970s they confirm I was using intervals as part of sessions even back then.
Three hours training per week = limited value
If you want to ride, or especially race, in long one-day races or stage races, doing the hours and kilometres is important.
Some high intensity interval training is also important to produce race-winning form. However, HIIT alone will not produce a good endurance athlete.
To finish; let’s consider this nice piece of research on high intensity interval training models
“In conclusion, in this population of relatively untrained but healthy young adults, our results suggest no particular advantage for very high intensity training models, such as that which has been widely adapted from the results of Tabata et al. (1996). The observation that the Tabata protocol was less enjoyable is not surprising.
"The progressive loss of enjoyment across all the protocols suggests that perhaps variety in the type of exercise is as important as the type of exercise per se. Particularly considering that the health benefits of exercise have to be viewed in the context of the likelihood that exercise is continued for several years, not just the weeks of a controlled study.
"Perhaps, in our quest to find the ‘perfect exercise’ we have missed the more important issue of how to make exercise enjoyable enough to be continued long term.”
I absolutely agree with the last sentence above! While HIIT will give quick results. If you want to be a good or very good athlete, training must be enjoyable to be sustained.
Enjoy your training!
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