Whatever your exercise of choice may be, chances are pretty good you’ve heard of the term high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. In fact, HIIT ranked among the top 10 worldwide fitness trends as recently as 2023, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Still, the (wordy) name itself might not be all that self-explanatory if you’re not already well-versed in fitness lingo. So what is HIIT really, and how can you use it to make the most of your workouts?
It’s a common and completely valid question, especially since there are plenty of misconceptions about HIIT floating around. Here’s what you need to know about this popular type of training—and how to determine if it’s right for you.
What is HIIT?
There’s a lot more to high-intensity interval training than the name alone suggests. In fact, HIIT refers to a very specific and particular type of exercise—and it’s possible to do interval training without actually doing a HIIT workout.
The hallmark of HIIT is repeated bouts of extremely hard work interspersed with periods of recovery. During your work intervals, you’ll be pushing yourself nearly to your max, Noam Tamir, CSCS, founder and CEO of TS Fitness in New York City, tells SELF.
It’s the opposite of, say, going for a long, easy run where you ration your energy in order to sustain the activity for longer. And it’s a little different from what you probably have seen billed as “HIIT” in gen-pop exercise classes, says Tamir. Most protocols labeled “HIIT” would actually be more accurately described as circuit training or interval training, he says.
When your body is going all-out during true HIIT, it relies on your anaerobic pathways (breaking down glucose without oxygen) to produce the energy it needs for fuel. This provides an immediate supply, but the amount is very limited—which means the length of time you can sustain that degree of effort is quite short, says Tamir.
In fact, in a true HIIT session, you’d likely limit your work intervals to about 20 seconds, he says. Then, you’d take ample recovery time, usually at about a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of rest to work. If you were doing 20-second sprints, you’d rest for 40 seconds to one minute before beginning your next interval, for example. By comparison, the workouts many people think of as HIIT involve way longer work intervals and much shorter rest periods, precluding the same level of intensity.
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