So now you've had the right breakfast to program your body into fat-burning mode. You've started your day right! Now comes the workout....the hardest part by far! Since you're focused on fat-burning now, I assume you've been doing the most advanced style of weight training where you're incorporating drop sets, giant sets, rest pause sets, etc. But now you need to do a workout that specifically breaks down body fat, and high amounts of it, to be able to peel back those abs and muscles more to shine like a god! That workout is none other than High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
So, what is HIIT. This is a style of training that requires you to be highly explosive and move as fast as you can for a given period of time. This is literally working 110% capacity. When your body senses you moving this fast and pushing this hard, the fight or flight response kicks in. When this happens, adrenaline goes sky high, and your body starts dumping both glycogen and fat stores to get you to 'survive' that fight or flight response. This is the key reason to be doing HIIT training. It's the only type of workout that causes the body to MOBILIZE stored body.
Now, some of you may have heard that steady state, low-intensity cardio is better for utilizing fat. Research shows that 90% of calories burned from low-intensity cardio is body fat, while only 75% comes from HIIT. Well, I guess I'm wrong.....right? But here's the thing. You burn way more calories during HIIT than you do with low-intensity cardio. This leads to a situation where you burn 90% of a small amount vs burning 75% of a very high amount. Of course, the 75% of a higher amount wins, which is why HIIT is more effective for fat-burning. But that's not to say that low-intensity cardio is useless. Low-intensity burns a higher percentage of that, but there has to be fat MOBILIZED AND AVAILABLE in order to be burned. Back to that in a minute.
So, for those that want to do HIIT and separate yourselves from the boys and girls, here are the best ways to achieve that 110% threshold. Sprints on foot, spin bikes, and rowing machines are the most ideal. Sprints can be done outside or on the treadmill, but with parks opening back up it'd probably be easier to do it outside, rather than trying to crank up a treadmill by hand and possibly lose control in the process. The spin bikes and rowing machines allow a safe environment where you're strapped in and don't have to worry about losing balance or control.
Now, most people have never done a true HIIT session. I guarantee most of you haven't gone all out at 110% before at anything physically. That's ok, because just like anything else in life, you have to build up to it! The best way to start out is with a work, rest ratio of 1:8. That rest seems long, but trust me, you'll be using every minute of it to soak up oxygen and get ready for the next cycle. Ideally you want to go 110% for 30 seconds, then rest 4 minutes. That is the best place to start, with 4-6 cycles. For your first HIIT session you'll probably get to 4 cycles before you start feeling dizzy. That's normal! If you start feeling unwell, just end the session. It takes time for your body to adapt to these workouts. Over time, you'll be able to gradually shorten the rest times, and even up the cycles if you want. However, NEVER go past 10 cycles. If you're able to do that many, then you're not doing it right. The focus is on hitting that 110%. If you have to rest longer to achieve that, that's fine, but just push literally as hard as you can.
In between those cycles, the low-intensity cardio comes into play. With the fat you mobilized during the cycle, drive that mobilized fat into your mitochondria (your powerhouse cells in the muscles) to get burned. Then, when your entire session is done, to light walking on the treadmill for 20-25 minutes to ensure all of that mobilized fat is burned and it helps your nervous system cool down too.
After the HIIT session, go and hit the weights. You may think I'm crazy when I say that, but you'll recover after that light walk on the treadmill. For the weights, focus only on isolation exercises. HIIT training, like the anabolic exercises deadlift, bench, squat, jacks up testosterone and HGH in the body so you don't need to do any of those exercises if you've done HIIT. However, you can still do light-weight squats of around 10 reps if you're up to it, but it's not necessary. Focus on the isolation exercises as it'll be hard to contract your muscles after having done HIIT, but just contract the best you can. If you can only do one quad and one hamstring exercise, that's fine! Just contract the muscles as hard as you can. Remember, it's QUALITY over QUANTITY. Then chug those BCAA like there's no tomorrow!
That's the most optimal setup to burn stored body fat by utilizing HIIT. Remember, the key is to MOBILIZE stored fat so that it can be burned. The HIIT mobilizes the fat, and the low-intensity cardio allows it to be burned. In the next part, we'll talk about what you need to be doing right after that very intense workout to maximize recover and to keep the fat-burning going.
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