HIIT -- all or nothing?

So I've started doing HIIT or what I'm pretty sure is HIIT but I'm wondering, if you don't push yourself to the absolute max number of reps, ie falling off the bike/vomiting/can't function, how much less of a workout do you get? I see a lot of comments on here telling people they're not doing real HIIT just interval training and I'm wondering where the threshold is where you start to reap the miraculous benefits of HIIT. Anyone?

Personally I think working to the point of vomitting passing out  and such is too much.  Sure you should be exhaused you should feel ou can't push another second.  So what if you aren't doing "HIIT" to that other persons idea of what it should be you are still getting a very effective workout if you've pushed yourself as hard as you can.  Dont let someone else make your feel any less adequate.  

I have NO idea. haha. I wonder the same thing, because I do an interval workout, but I don't think it's intense enough to be called HIIT--but it definitely fatigues me more than jogging for the same amount of time would.

I think it depends on the person too. Some people will never vomit from working out. And "all out" for me may be nothing for someone who is a pro cyclist or something. I think as long as you push yourself harder each time I'm sure the benefits will be similar.

You really should push yourself- but you should NEVER feel like passing out or vomiting. That's not good. Go more by h/r. Take your h/r from like 40% of your max to 80 or 90%. That's the way I understand it. Making yourself physically ill is not a good thing.

Shmoopy

Yea I think shmoopy's got it right. When I used to ride the bike without HIIT I would be at about 160-165 or 170. When I started my "HIIT" I would get it up to about 190 bpm. My highest is 192 bpm...so I know based on my heart rate that I'm working hard. If I am having a slacking day and it only gets up to 180-185, I can see in front of me that I'm not working as hard.

flowerbud, which miraculous benefits do you have in mind?  The most amazing benefit of HIIT is a dramatic increase in anaerobic capacity even in those already very fit before they start HIIT, and it seems to require an extremely intense form of HIIT to get that (the Tabata protocol alternated 20 seconds of max effort with just 10 seconds of low effort, and left college varsity athletes thrashing on the floor gasping for air after 4-5 minutes, 5x a week).  So if that's what you want, by all means puke your guts out ;-)

The most-quoted studies on fat loss used much milder forms of HIIT.  So if fat loss is what you're after, it's fine to drop the intensity (shorter work periods, longer rest periods) to a level where it's possible to continue for 20 minutes.

But do note that "miraculous" is strongly overstated in this case!  The usual "9x as much fat loss per calorie expended" claim only sounds miraculous until you read one of these studies.  For example, in Trapp and Boutcher's "Fat loss following 15 weeks of high intensity, intermittent cycle ergometer training", mean fat loss only amounted to about 5.5 pounds over 15 weeks in the HIIT group.  That was much larger than the approximately 0.9 pounds of fat lost by the steady-state group, but 5.5 pounds of fat loss over 15 weeks is much easier to achieve via mild calorie restriction  (cut about 200 calories a day).

tgpish -- that was just the kind of response I was looking for, thanks!

I said "miraculous" somewhat sarcastically because it seems to be all the rage nowadays. The benefits I was alluding to were the increase in anaerobic threshold as well as the fat loss and two more you didn't mention: muscle gain and an increase in metabolism.

I am no expert but I believe that in my webpage reading I've seen that it helps lose fat and build muscle. Which you can't do by cutting 200 cals/day, as far as I know. Also, I am trying to maintain, not lose weight, just hoping to lower body fat %, so I don't know that cutting 200 cals/day would have the desired effect. I would appreciate a heightened metabolism as it would enable me to eat more and I do like my food :)

As for anaerobic capacity: nothing in my life necessitates a dramatic increase. I am not thrashing on the floor gasping for air after my workout, but 5 mins of 30 sec sprint/30 sec low effort leave me quite exhausted -- more so than a 45 min spin class. (I've only done it twice so I'm building up to more cycles.)

So will my version lead to fat loss, increased metabolism, and hopefully a gradual increase in anaerobic capacity?

i do a 5 min warmp up  30 sec sprint as hard as i can and a 30 sec "jog", i do mine on an elptical though, 20 mins of that and im normally done for the day lol.  I couldnt even play DDR a few hours later as i was still too wiped out from it. You will notice improvments as you go though, i use that as my main form of cardio and im down something like 25 pounds in 6-8 weeks.  But i do also lift on my off days so *shrug* just go for it cant hurt any.

giggle_puppy, is that even safe? 25 lbs in 6-8 weeks averages out to 3-4 lbs/week... I thought 1-2 was safe.

flowerbud, HIIT won't increase muscle mass except possibly for a bit near the start.  Resistance training (lifting weights) is the only way to keep increasing muscle mass.  Resistance training also gives a significantly larger and longer-lasting post-exercise metabolism boost than even Tabata's brutal form of HIIT.  If you're near calorie balance, you can gain some muscle and lose some fat at the same time by lifting, although it's more efficient to concentrate 100% on one or the other (most bodybuilders endlessly alternate between "bulking up" and "cutting fat" phases).  In short, most of your goals seem to me better served by lifting than by cardio work.

I don't know where the cutoff for increasing anaerobic capacity might lie.  Tabata didn't make up the routine he studied:  it was already in use by elite Japanese speed skaters, who stumbled into it "the usual way", trying different schemes until they found a "sweet spot".  "Head theories" made up after the fact largely seem to agree that resting much less than working was important to the anaerobic effects, essentially simply because ramping up to a huge oxygen debt quickly and staying there is what "anaerobic" is all about.  The speed skaters' 10 seconds of relative rest is just enough recovery time so they could push to the max again.  Studies have shown that conventional steady-state aerobic exercise has no effect on anaerobic capacity.  It's reasonable to assume there's a spectrum between that and Tabata HIIT, and that there will be more effect on anaerobic capacity the more severely you're out of breath.

One way to eat more is to eat more ;-)  Seriously, bodybuilders often eat every 2 1/2 to 3 hours, but relatively small meals.  This works equally well for building muscle and for cutting fat.  Get some lean protein and complex carbs in every small meal, and that too boosts metabolism in multiple ways:  the act of digestion requires energy too, and protein requires more energy to metabolize than carbs (and much more energy than fat).

Its safe. i seat my calories needed etc, so

tgpish -- would eating more regularly have a lasting effect? Meaning, I understand that if I eat small meals every 2 1/2-3 hrs (which I sort of do... maybe more like every 3-3 1/2 hrs) I can eat more. But what if I do that on a regular basis, and then one day I go out to a restaurant and eat a big meal, or I go on vacation for a week and eat 3 meals a day and one of them is big. Will my maintenance calories be increased beyond the days that I actually eat 2 1/2-3 hrs?

I have started lifting weights as well. I find it a bit boring :-/ but I'm trying for twice a week:
Mondays: upper body weights, lower body HIIT on a spinning bike
Tues: pilates
Wed: off
Thurs: full body weight class, then spinning (this week I did HIIT for the first 12 mins then did a low-key version of the class), then Pilates
Fri: off
Sat: spinning
Sun: off

On my off days I try to go for a long walk and am going to try incorporating some jogging into the walks. My gym is closed Fri afternoons and weekends which is why I have those days off or else I would love to do some weight training on those days. I try to do some pushups and tricep presses at home.

I'm not looking for fast results but some results would be nice -- am I on the right track?

flowerbud, I don't know of any way to permanently boost base metabolic rate.  The longest-lasting way is growing new muscle mass, and then the boost lasts for as long as you retain the new muscle.  "Eating tricks" only apply for several hours at most.  Strength-training gives a short-term boost for upwards of a full day, and a long-term boost to the extent that you grow new muscle.

About finding lifting boring, didn't you say elsewhere you got lifting advice from a Pilates instructor who had you doing high reps with light weight?  That's not "lifting" to anyone else here ;-)  Lifting heavy enough that muscles plain fail before about a dozen reps while maintaining good form is anything but boring:  it's brief, intense, and both physically and mentally challenging.  Stick to big-muscle, multi-muscle lifts:  squat, deadlift, standing press, bench press, chinups/pullups (with a variety of grips, and adding a weight belt if/when you can do more than about a dozen in a set), bent rows, dips.  Those are all demanding, and will shock your body into improving.

About calories, while I'm acutely aware of the calorie content of everything I eat, I don't add it up or pay any attention to the calories burned by various activities.  There's a much saner way to proceed:  get your body fat percentage meaured at least monthly.  From that you can easily compute your fat and non-fat ("lean") weights -- the sum of those two is simply your total weight.  Then you'll know how your fat and lean masses are each changing over time, and that objective feedback is the key to everything.

How to apply that feedback depends on you making up quantifiable goals first.  For example, maybe you want to start by losing 10 pounds of fat, and (at worst) without losing any lean mass.  You measure at the start, and measure again a few weeks later.  If you find you've lost both fat and lean mass, then you may need to eat more (or just shift some calories from carbs to protein), and/or work harder at not skipping meals, and/or cut back on cardio work, and/or intensify your strength-training.  Which of those applies best will depend on all the details of what you've been doing day by day, and should be pretty clear to you (if not, make small changes in all those areas).

Feedback-directed changes are extremely effective, and will soon enough make you the leading expert in the world on what does and doesn't work for you.  Nobody else can do better than guess about that anyway.

BTW, if you cultivate the habit of eating smaller meals but more frequently, the "big meal problem" will take care of itself.  I don't know whether the stomach can actually shrink, but it "feels like" it does:  when you get used to never being worse than comfortably hungry for brief periods, and never feeling stuffed either, eating a truly big meal becomes an unpleasant experience you simply won't want to do again (well, after the second time ;-))  It will make you feel groggy and bloated, and you won't want to feel that way.

Of course you'll survive occassional social over-eating -- it won't even have any major effect on your progress.  Nearly the whole story with respect to making progress over time is what you do most of the time; obsessing over never missing a workout or never eating "bad food" does more harm than good.  Just keep measuring fat and lean mass over time, and if/when you don't like how they're changing, what to do to correct it will become obvious.

tgpish -- thanks so much for your responses. I really appreciate you putting in the time to give so much good advice!

To clarify, the big meal problem I was referring to was more of a high-cal meal than a high-volume. I know what you're saying about the stomach shrinking or at least seemingly so -- I definitely think I know how to be satisfied with less food now than I used to be. My new problem is that 3 hours later I'm hungry again :) BUT my bigger problem with social eating is that other people don't often prepare food low calorie, and then even if you eat to satiety and not fullness you can still overeat your calories. I know the tricks about ordering the right things at restaurants and filling up on veggies but honestly sometimes when you go to these bbqs at friends' houses, there are no such options. I try to drink water and have small portions of things but even if I don't overeat by volume I can overeat calories.

And as for lifting: I didn't get lifting advice from her, but I do take a class with her, a full-body weight class once a week. I have only been in it 3 weeks or so but I am trying to increase my weights as much as I can. But she does gear it toward high reps (12-ish) and she goes kind of fast so it's hard to get that last hard one in. I'm trying to do weights one other day a week, and there I do it based on a routine from stumptuous.com. I get most of my lifting advice online, by the way. I started this this past Monday and did upper body weights and then HIIT on the spin bike for lower body. But... even at low reps, high weight lifting is a bit boring to me... something I push myself to do because I know I should rather than because I enjoy it. Maybe I'll learn to love it. :) And hey, if that's the only thing that'll let me eat more, it's worth the sacrifice :)

In the weight class we do squats and deadlifts but not with a lot of weight. I think we get a pretty good arm/upper body workout (and the weights are heavy enough where I feel I get a good challenge), and I spin afterwards. Think I should do something different?

Also, I had one more question, about HIIT vs cardio: on a day that I know will be high in calories, is it better to do regular steady-state cardio to offset the calories? or is HIIT still better? This morning in spin class I started with HIIT (on my own) and then pedaled through the rest of the class, but I was pretty exhausted so couldn't do much other than pedal at low intensity... so may have burned more calories during the session itself if I had just gone with the class. But I don't know about the after-effects on metabolism... anyway, wanted to get your opinion.

Thanks again!

The fun in lifting is meeting the challenge, improving every time.  The point to most forms of resistance training is to literally damage muscle, so that the body repairs it a bit stronger and/or bigger each time.  This requires pushing to, or very close to, true failure.  "No pain, no gain" applies here.  Fast lifting is a poor idea, unless you're specifically engaged in some form of plyometric training.  Lifting slowly (say 3 seconds up, 3 down, and no pause at top or bottom) is a better way to exhaust muscles.  Fast lifting not only reduces time under load, but momentum does too much of the work.  Slow and controlled ... and damn painful before it ends ;-)

HIIT isn't strength-training.  It won't build muscle in your legs except for perhaps a bit at the start.  Heavy squats are probably the single most valuable lift you can do.  If you're doing them effectively, you should barely be able to walk after a heavy set, and be sucking air as if you had just run a 100-yard dash.

One-time meals don't matter -- again, it's what you do most of the time that matters over time.  Bodies don't "want" to change, and many mechanisms act to preserve the status quo in the face of unusual stimuli (and what's "unusual"?  by definition, what you don't do "most of the time").

For example, it's unlikely you're going to get a high-calorie low-volume meal unless you load up on more fat than you're used to (fat has more than twice as many calories per gram than does protein or carbs).  But dietary fat doesn't go directly into fat cells.  It has to be digested first:  enyzmes break fat down into fatty acids, those acids travel in the bloodstream, and then the acids may be reassembled into fat inside fat cells.

Now a fat-blocking drug (like orlistat) works by binding to the crucial enzyme (pancreatic lipase) in this process, leaving it unavailable to do its job (breaking down fat).  As a result, dietary fat shoots through the digestive system untouched, and is simply crapped out.  People on a fat-blocking drug are strongly advised to cut their dietary fat because, if they don't, stools may become urgent, oily/greasy, and even major diarrhea can result.  Much the same happens to people when they eat too much food with olestra (an indigestible form of fat).

And much the same happens to, e.g., me ;-) when I eat a meal with much more fat than I'm used to.  I don't know whether a formal study has been done on this.  My hypothesis is that the body produces enough pancreatic lipase to break down the amount of dietary fat you usually eat.  Eat more than that one time, and there's not enough enzyme to break down much of the excess, and so much of the excess fat gets crapped out.  In fact, I can make a pretty good guess as to how much fat I ate yesterday by counting how much toilet paper I need to use today ;-)

Besides all that, eating more calories on some days isn't a bad thing in & of itself.  To the contrary, on weight-training days it can be a positively good thing.  If you're going to a BBQ Saturday night, hit the weights hard Saturday afternoon, then enjoy all the ribs you can stuff into yourself :-)

To learn more about metabolic effects of various forms of exercise, EPOC is a good search term.  It stands for Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption.  Strength training (hard, not easy) boosts it the most and the longest time.  Low- to medium-intensity aerobics boosts it the least and the shortest.  HIIT is between those extremes.  HIIT is the best kind of aerobics for burning fat, and is the least harmful form wrt burning muscle for energy (it's not that HIIT builds muscle, it's more that HIIT spares muscle compared to lower-intensity longer-duration aerobics).

OTOH, in the absence of crystal clear, quantified goals, general fitness is served by doing all kinds of things.

Thanks so much again, tgpish.

It sounds like I should be replacing some of my cardio sessions with lower body weights. I am afraid to give up my cardio for fear of gaining weight :-/ but in the long run building muscle should help! So maybe I will swap Monday's HIIT for squats, and try to have some heavier weights for the weight class I take. (I can stand in the back and do the reps at my own pace.) That way I will do full body weights twice a week (Mon & Thurs) and cardio twice (Tues & Sat). How do you feel about doing cardio and/or Pilates after doing weights? If I can safely do some cardio Thursdays after my weights, then I can do another day of weights on Saturdays.

What do you suggest for a lower body routine? When you say doing squats "effectively" -- where should I start as far as what kind of squats, how many reps/sets and what other exercises?

If you want to grow more muscle, cardio work is The Devil, and you will gain weight (both muscle and fat).  Strength-training is key to that, and you can't do a half-assed job of it & expect progress (if you find it boring, you're doing a half-assed job of it ;-)).  Some cardio is essential for good health, and when trying to build muscle you should do the minimum amount of cardio you feel is necessary for that purpose.  When you've gained as much muscle as you want, or more fat than you're comfortable with, switch to a fat-loss phase (switch to a calorie deficit and as much cardio as you like, but continue strength-training to preserve as much of the new muscle as possible).

Pick a goal that excites you and go for it; don't hold back.  That engages the emotions, and boredom can't exist when the emotions are fired up (have you ever been excited and bored at the same time?  the right answer is "no" :-)).

Effective beginner weight routines are posted here several times each week.  I listed all the lifts that are most useful for beginners in this thread in reply #13.  The trick isn't to do lots of different weight exercises, it's to do just a handful of exceptionally demanding ones but do them with all your heart.  spirochete recently posted a link to a very detailed plan:

     http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php? t=998224

Of course everyone favors what worked best for them, but there's no way to know what will work best for you without trying different things.  That plan looks like a fine start.  To my mind, 3 exercises per session is too few even for a beginner (but, e.g., 7 is too many), and I'd start with lighter weight so that 10-12 reps are possible before failure.  That's probably colored by my age (I'm 55 now):  lifting places new strains not just on muscle, but on tendons, ligaments, and joints too, and "better safe than sorry" is something old coots like me say too much :-)  Lighter weights at the start stand less chance of doing injury, and it's easier to master good form with lighter weights.

But a beginner (who works their ass off) will make good progress following virtually any non-insane scheme, and that scheme is sane.  So pick a scheme, get BF% measured regularly, see what happens to your fat and lean weights over time, and make adjustments accordingly.  If you're willing to settle for meager progress, that's what you'll get.  There have certainly been times in my life when I lifted just to kill time, but I saw no results then.  Cardio and time-killing work great together; effective lifting requires concentration and focused effort throughout.

It's fine to do cardio after lifting, if you can handle it.  I find intense aerobics to be impossible after heavy leg work, and even moderate-intensity aerobics suffer for me a lot then.  So I don't try anymore, instead alternating lifting and cardio days.  Light cardio (just enough to start sweating) is an excellent way to warm up before lifting.

Doing Pilates after lifting is probably a good thing -- any kind of stretching work is great after a weight session.

Because squats are so intense, it's important to give special attention to warming up for them.  Here Clarence Bass explains some excellent ways to do that.

Thanks again, tgpish. Your advice is always valuable and I hope it doesn't seem like I'm asking the same questions over and over again but there is just so much information out there and I am trying to figure it all out!

I saw spirochete's post today with that program. My main problem is that I currently only have access to dumbbells up to 35lbs, no barbell or bench. I don't know if you saw my other post but I tried squatting with dumbbells and my traps fatigued way before my legs. I had this problem with other large-muscle exercises, my arms couldn't get the dumbbells to where they needed to be. I am thinking about joining a gym for this reason, but in the meantime, do you have any suggestions?

One question directly regarding your post. You start it by saying:

"If you want to grow more muscle, cardio work is The Devil..."

and end by saying:

"It's fine to do cardio after lifting, if you can handle it.", and that you alternate lifting and cardio days.

Which is it?

My goal is to look more defined and less mushy. I think this means I need to grow muscle and lose fat. Does alternating lifting and cardio days accomplish this? Or does that just maintain what you're at? Alternating bulking and cutting periods seems really hardcore for what I'm looking to achieve!

And last but not least -- I think I can get excited about weights if I am excited about the goal, like you said. That is what got me excited about cardio. Problem is, when it's all such a jumble of information, I find it hard to focus on a plan... which is why I'm here asking you all these questions to try and figure it all out. So if it helps you help me, know that these posts really are making this all come together for me!

Thanks again :)

Hey, questions are great!  I know it can be confusing.

One of the reasons squats are so valuable is that so many different muscle groups get involved.  As time goes on, different muscles will become your current "weak point" -- and that's a good thing.  The kind of dumbbell squat I suggest is with weights hanging down by your sides; your traps don't get involved all that much unless for some reason you're trying to pull up with your shoulders too:

    http://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/DB Squat.html

Your shoulders should just act like a pivot point here.  If that's still hard on your traps, so be it.  Muddle thru ;-) until you can get to a barbell squat, or your traps grow strong enough that the focus shifts elsewhere.

Some cardio work is essential for cardiovascular health.  I'm currently cutting fat big-time, and do 2 to 3 hours of cardio a week.  I don't gain any muscle while doing this, but don't lose any either (which is the point of continuing strength-training for me at this time).  I'll probably want to gain some muscle when this phase is over, and then I'll cut back to 1 hour of cardio a week (20 minutes 3 days a week).  That's the minimum I happen to believe is necessary for good cardio health, given the amount of "unintentional" cardio work I also do (walking, climbing stairs, stuff in everyday life).  If in doubt, ask your doctor rather than listen to anyone here ;-)  The received wisdom is that more than 90 minutes of cardio work per week severely interferes with gaining new muscle.

Keep in mind that "hard core" is just another name for what professionals do -- and they do it that way because that way works best (they've tried everything!).  You'd be flabbergasted at how quickly modest goals can be achieved if you go at things the way pros do instead of like your mushy friends do ;-)

You're absolutely right that getting "more defined and less mushy" is achieved by a combination of growing muscle and losing fat, but honestly cutting fat is more important to looking defined.  Weights and cardio both help cut fat, and when cutting fat the primary points to doing weights are to boost your metabolism and to avoid losing muscle from the cardio work.  But you're not going to get any long-term metabolism boost unless you grow new muscle:  trying to do everything at once is a recipe for making scant progress on all fronts.  If you decide you most want to cut fat at first, do as much cardio as you can stand ;-)

That's how I was doing the squats. The traps still got involved, even though I REALLY tried to just let my arms hang and not lift with them. Just the pivoting action I guess required a lot of trap work... maybe I'll keep trying :) 2x30 lbs was significantly easier than 2x35 lbs so maybe I'll try that for a few more sessions, and work up from there.

As for losing fat: will I lose weight as well? Because if I do, then according to the BMI calculator I will be underweight. What will happen if I continue to do cardio as well as strength training, and eat at maintenance calories?

And if I do follow this plan: should I still go with the weight program you linked to? And does it matter what kind of cardio I do? And how much of each? And where does Pilates fit in to the picture?

I seem to be even more confused now :) hehe