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?
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BMI is a crock (a gross statistic invented for use in large-scale population studies because it's easy and cheap to compute, and is good at identifying the morbidly obese and deathly thin -- for everyone else it's crap -- so there :-)): get BF% measured instead.
Strength-training is good for everyone, regardless of goal, and the style of strength-training doesn't change between muscle-gaining and fat-loss phases. If I cut back my cardio and ate substantially more, but kept my weight routines the same, I'd be gaining muscle (& some fat) now instead of merely not losing any. BTW, it's also fun getting stronger, and you can indeed get stronger without growing new muscle! The amount I can lift keeps going up despite that I'm not gaining muscle, and that's not unique to me.
If you want to gain some muscle and lose some fat, both slower than possible, eating near maintenance is fine, but do strength-training and don't do much more cardio than you believe is necessary for general cardio health. In short, a muscle-gaining routine but without a substantial calorie surplus.
As before, HIIT is the best kind of aerobics both for burning fat and for sparing muscle.
I'm not sure what Pilates does for anyone ;-) Never did it myself. I did Hatha yoga for decades, but eventually dropped it, as experiments (done on myself) seemed to say it didn't accomplish much of anything for me beyond giving me extraordinary flexibility (it didn't grow muscle, it didn't burn fat, it didn't improve aerobic fitness). I hope someone who knows more about Pilates can chime in with what they believe it does for them.
Strength-training is good for everyone, regardless of goal, and the style of strength-training doesn't change between muscle-gaining and fat-loss phases. If I cut back my cardio and ate substantially more, but kept my weight routines the same, I'd be gaining muscle (& some fat) now instead of merely not losing any. BTW, it's also fun getting stronger, and you can indeed get stronger without growing new muscle! The amount I can lift keeps going up despite that I'm not gaining muscle, and that's not unique to me.
If you want to gain some muscle and lose some fat, both slower than possible, eating near maintenance is fine, but do strength-training and don't do much more cardio than you believe is necessary for general cardio health. In short, a muscle-gaining routine but without a substantial calorie surplus.
As before, HIIT is the best kind of aerobics both for burning fat and for sparing muscle.
I'm not sure what Pilates does for anyone ;-) Never did it myself. I did Hatha yoga for decades, but eventually dropped it, as experiments (done on myself) seemed to say it didn't accomplish much of anything for me beyond giving me extraordinary flexibility (it didn't grow muscle, it didn't burn fat, it didn't improve aerobic fitness). I hope someone who knows more about Pilates can chime in with what they believe it does for them.
When I first started doing Pilates I definitely noticed a difference in my ab strength. My abs got hard fast. Now... well I'm not sure what it does, hopefully maintains ab strength if nothing else. It's better than sitting on the couch... plus flexibility is important for health, isn't it? But I don't think it does nearly as much for flexibility as, say, Bikram yoga might.
So I guess the plan is to alternate cardio and weights. Realistically it'll probably be more heavily cardio until I figure out my gym situation, just because I don't always have access to weights, but the goal will be to do weights 3 days a week. And I'll do cardio on some of the off days (I don't see myself going to the gym every day, but on the ones I don't, I try to stay somewhat active, even a nice long walk) or after weights if I can. It probably won't all be HIIT because I'm finding I enjoy the low intensity, long duration cardio to clear my mind.
Of course all this may be moot since I just found out I'm traveling out of the country next week for a few weeks... and probably won't have any regular access to weights at all while I'm there. Cardio is easy, I can always go out for a walk/jog if nothing else and I think I will have some access to a bike and/or stair stepper. So here I go with the questions again: is there a lower body strength routine for no weights, or suggestions on what to do? For upper body I know of pushups and tricep dips which don't require any equipment. Any others?
So I guess the plan is to alternate cardio and weights. Realistically it'll probably be more heavily cardio until I figure out my gym situation, just because I don't always have access to weights, but the goal will be to do weights 3 days a week. And I'll do cardio on some of the off days (I don't see myself going to the gym every day, but on the ones I don't, I try to stay somewhat active, even a nice long walk) or after weights if I can. It probably won't all be HIIT because I'm finding I enjoy the low intensity, long duration cardio to clear my mind.
Of course all this may be moot since I just found out I'm traveling out of the country next week for a few weeks... and probably won't have any regular access to weights at all while I'm there. Cardio is easy, I can always go out for a walk/jog if nothing else and I think I will have some access to a bike and/or stair stepper. So here I go with the questions again: is there a lower body strength routine for no weights, or suggestions on what to do? For upper body I know of pushups and tricep dips which don't require any equipment. Any others?
Oh, one more thing: Do you believe in body fat scales for measuring body fat? I had caliper & tape measurements taken 3 weeks ago I think, and they came out about 2% higher than when I was measured only a few days earlier with a handheld device (23% vs 21%). The woman who measured me also estimated about 21% by eye and was surprised when the numbers came out to 23%.
Anyway, point of the story is I can't do either of those regularly since I don't own the device or calipers. I could convince myself to invest in one or the other... but which?
Anyway, point of the story is I can't do either of those regularly since I don't own the device or calipers. I could convince myself to invest in one or the other... but which?
Oh, I'm not dissing Pilates -- never tried it, so don't know. I've known dancers and swimmers who really liked it, and fine by me.
Flexibility is important, but "extraordinary flexibility" is of little apparent use. For example, at 40 I could still stand with my legs straight and rest my forehead on my knees comfortably. Very few guys can do that regardless of age, but I can't say that my ability to do so bought me anything except for the jealousy of my sisters ;-)
Some of the breathing techniques you learned in Pilates will also be useful in strength-training. For example, it's good to make the "ssssss" sound while rising in a squat. This provides some core stability (via engaging abdominals), and is much kinder to your heart than holding your breath all the way up (a bad idea beginners often fall into). This will be much more important when you get to barbell squats.
Old-fashioned calisthenics can be done anywhere, and do have some limited use for building strength. A nice collection is in the public domain "Farmer" Burns course, once sold to wrestler wannabes, and more recently exploited by Matt Furey (who makes a fortune selling courses of bodyweight exercises).
For legs there's not much you can do beyond squats and lunges without equipment -- but I bet you'll find one-leg squats challenging!
If you're going to travel a lot, here's a source of clever, extremely portable, and reasonably priced cable- and tube-based resistance equipment:
http://www.lifelineusa.com/
In some ways that stuff can be even more challenging than weights, as cables (such as in an old-fashioned chest expander) are so light they don't have any momentum to speak of, and so force stabilizer muscles to work overtime keeping the movement smooth, steady and straight.
You're certainly allowed to do lower-intensity aerobics :-) The most important thing in aerobics is to find a mix you enjoy, or at least don't hate. Otherwise it's all too easy to just stop doing them. I'm doing most of my aerobics now on a rebounder (a mini-trampoline), which is so much plain fun I jump on several times a day just for the heck of it. That's also great for balance, which is another important aspect of fitness (although, again, I don't expect that developing extraordinary balance is of much practical benefit -- the ability to hop one-legged on a rebounder without falling is its own reward ;-)).
Flexibility is important, but "extraordinary flexibility" is of little apparent use. For example, at 40 I could still stand with my legs straight and rest my forehead on my knees comfortably. Very few guys can do that regardless of age, but I can't say that my ability to do so bought me anything except for the jealousy of my sisters ;-)
Some of the breathing techniques you learned in Pilates will also be useful in strength-training. For example, it's good to make the "ssssss" sound while rising in a squat. This provides some core stability (via engaging abdominals), and is much kinder to your heart than holding your breath all the way up (a bad idea beginners often fall into). This will be much more important when you get to barbell squats.
Old-fashioned calisthenics can be done anywhere, and do have some limited use for building strength. A nice collection is in the public domain "Farmer" Burns course, once sold to wrestler wannabes, and more recently exploited by Matt Furey (who makes a fortune selling courses of bodyweight exercises).
For legs there's not much you can do beyond squats and lunges without equipment -- but I bet you'll find one-leg squats challenging!
If you're going to travel a lot, here's a source of clever, extremely portable, and reasonably priced cable- and tube-based resistance equipment:
http://www.lifelineusa.com/
In some ways that stuff can be even more challenging than weights, as cables (such as in an old-fashioned chest expander) are so light they don't have any momentum to speak of, and so force stabilizer muscles to work overtime keeping the movement smooth, steady and straight.
You're certainly allowed to do lower-intensity aerobics :-) The most important thing in aerobics is to find a mix you enjoy, or at least don't hate. Otherwise it's all too easy to just stop doing them. I'm doing most of my aerobics now on a rebounder (a mini-trampoline), which is so much plain fun I jump on several times a day just for the heck of it. That's also great for balance, which is another important aspect of fitness (although, again, I don't expect that developing extraordinary balance is of much practical benefit -- the ability to hop one-legged on a rebounder without falling is its own reward ;-)).
About BF%, all practical ways of measuring that are just guesses. Consistency across measurement is most important. If you're doing it yourself, the only practical ways are with an electronic gizmo (Tanita and Omron are the best-known), or with a single-site caliper (Accu-Measure sells for about $20).
Electronic gizmos are generally less accurate, and consistency is hard to get out of them. Here are articles on increasing consistency with calipers and with scales.
I like to measure daily, but more for academic reasons than practical ones. My body fat is distributed in such a way that the one-site Accu-Measure method grossly underestimates my true body fat. I mostly use an Omron HBF-500 electronic gizmo instead (about $70 at amazon.com), which surprisingly enough gets much closer to the truth for me, but there's so much measurement noise from day to day I have to plot the numbers in a spreadsheet and fit a trend line to them to get a good idea.
The chief problem with the electronic methods is that they're way too sensitive to body hydration level and distribution (water acts a lot more like muscle than like fat with respect to electrical resistance). For that reason, if you use one first thing in the morning (when hydration is lowest), and again last thing at night (which hydration is highest), it's common for them to claim physiologically impossible changes (like "wow! your weight hasn't changed, but you've gained 2 lbs of muscle and lost 2 lbs of fat today!").
I don't care about that, though -- I only care whether each of fat and lean weight is going up, down, or staying the same over time, and it's good enough to tell me that by measuring at the same time each day.
Should also note that the better electronic gizmos also give a separate guess about visceral fat ("invisible" fat surrounding organs under the abs), which calipers can't say anything about. The distinction is important because visceral fat is much more strongly correlated with health risks than subcutaneous fat (fat you can pinch thru the skin -- or with calipers). I don't know your gender, but this is generally much more important for men than women (most men grow visceral fat as easily as most women grow fat on their thighs).
So if you can live with the inherent measurement noise and possible worse accuracy, I like the scales: no skill required. Otherwise calipers, but be aware it takes some serious practice to get consistent readings from them too. I bet most trainers won't admit this, but when they pinch you with calipers multiple times, sometimes they're just trying to grab fat in a way that matches what they thought your BF% was just by looking at you :-(
Electronic gizmos are generally less accurate, and consistency is hard to get out of them. Here are articles on increasing consistency with calipers and with scales.
I like to measure daily, but more for academic reasons than practical ones. My body fat is distributed in such a way that the one-site Accu-Measure method grossly underestimates my true body fat. I mostly use an Omron HBF-500 electronic gizmo instead (about $70 at amazon.com), which surprisingly enough gets much closer to the truth for me, but there's so much measurement noise from day to day I have to plot the numbers in a spreadsheet and fit a trend line to them to get a good idea.
The chief problem with the electronic methods is that they're way too sensitive to body hydration level and distribution (water acts a lot more like muscle than like fat with respect to electrical resistance). For that reason, if you use one first thing in the morning (when hydration is lowest), and again last thing at night (which hydration is highest), it's common for them to claim physiologically impossible changes (like "wow! your weight hasn't changed, but you've gained 2 lbs of muscle and lost 2 lbs of fat today!").
I don't care about that, though -- I only care whether each of fat and lean weight is going up, down, or staying the same over time, and it's good enough to tell me that by measuring at the same time each day.
Should also note that the better electronic gizmos also give a separate guess about visceral fat ("invisible" fat surrounding organs under the abs), which calipers can't say anything about. The distinction is important because visceral fat is much more strongly correlated with health risks than subcutaneous fat (fat you can pinch thru the skin -- or with calipers). I don't know your gender, but this is generally much more important for men than women (most men grow visceral fat as easily as most women grow fat on their thighs).
So if you can live with the inherent measurement noise and possible worse accuracy, I like the scales: no skill required. Otherwise calipers, but be aware it takes some serious practice to get consistent readings from them too. I bet most trainers won't admit this, but when they pinch you with calipers multiple times, sometimes they're just trying to grab fat in a way that matches what they thought your BF% was just by looking at you :-(
Hey, just wanted to thank you two for putting together a really informative thread. Came across it because I just started a HIIT program myself, and although I already put on muscle because of it (doing uphill running and jumping rope) I can see the point that it won't last, which I hadn't taken into account before. Then again I just saw the muscle gain as an added bonus to the weight loss. Tgpish, I think you answered questions for me that I didn't even realize that I had yet, so thanks. I do have a question though: Being more of a runner and cyclist, my upper body is rather, well, flabby. Yes I shall take that word. I've decided that that needs to change and have been going at exercises recently for abs, back, shoulders and arms. Here's the problem that I've got, even though I use light weights or no weights at all, I still have trouble maintaining good form, and I'd rather not do any damage. (For example, when doing crunches, my lower back will raise off the floor because I can't keep it down after about 4 reps) On the other hand, I don't feel that I've reached full fatigue after the exercise so I feel that I should keep going. Do I ignore form and keep at it or find easier exercises?
Hi, FlowerBud, you don't need to push yourself to the point of vomiting, in fact that could be dangerous for many people. Push yourself to the degree where you absolutely do not feel like having a conversation, but not to the point of death! Also, keep the intervals short as you increase your strength and endurance. Go for 30 second hard interval and a minute or two of active rest. Be sure to give yourself the chance to recover before you start your next interval. If it takes you 3 minutes, so be it. You can also shorten the hard interval as well.
Hi Nadzieja, you should never compromise form. If you can't keep your lower back from arching, your form is probably less than ideal for you. You do not indicate which crunch you were doing so I'm making some assumptions. If your lower back is popping off the floor, try bring bending your legs and bringing your knees closer to your torso to help round your lower back. If you're doing leg lifts, only lower your legs as far down as you can before your lower back pops off the ground.
Hi..I'm new to this so I'm jus wondering if anybody could help me out...I'm 5'1 and around 125lb...For about a year I must i've competely yo-yo dieted and i reckon ive hit a plateau. My body has to be in starvation mode and i fink ive got high percentage of fat...anyway, ive took an interest in this HIIT. apparantly it can break my plateau and help me shred fat. i'm not looking for a complete quick fix but its my bday in 2 months and id like to loose around 8lb. just wondering if i got down to this HIIT business it would help ?? I also do pilates for 30 mins a day.....sorry i cudnt make my own forum, im new to all this lol
thanks! x
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