Why Hiit Workouts Don't Work | Should I Why Am I Not Seeing Progress From Working Out

YouTube, what's going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to the video. In this video, I think this is gonna be a really good video. This is something I get asked very often throughout the course of my day-to-day life, and that is gonna be the difference between HIIT classes, things like, you know, some of the most popular Orange Theory or HIIT Boot Camps or P90X or, you know, any of those style of circuit group training classes Versus real strength training. And if you're somebody who follows me on any of my social medias, Instagram, TikTok, wherever, podcasts, I can link some, all that here below. I might put some pictures of like my podcast, Instagram, all that stuff right here. But if you follow me at all, you've probably heard me talk before about a real strength training program. And people always ask me, well, Eric, what is the difference between P90X and a real strength training program? What's the difference? Why is Orange Theory Not a real strength training program. Why does the group class at my gym, why isn't that a real strength training program? I'm going to tell you why in this video. I'm going to tell you all the differences, right? And there's a main difference. I'm going to break it down into obviously as some points you can see right here, which this one right here is a very big one. So I'll leave that one for last because I want you to watch the entire video and make sure you understand what I'm talking about. But first and foremost, I just want to say this. This video is not going to be me bashing HIIT boot camps. It's not going to be me bashing group classes, all of that stuff. I'm going to tell you the difference. I'm going to just explain to you why it's not a real strength training program. But here's the thing. You can watch this entire video, you can understand all of the facts, you can understand everything and still be like, fuck off, Eric. I like doing the workout, so I'm going to keep doing the workout. That's cool. Who am I to tell you otherwise? And who am I, some guy who just needs a haircut really bad? I forgot to shave today. My beard's way too long right now. Who am I to tell you to stop doing something that you don't— that you enjoy doing? If you want to keep doing it, keep doing it. And I'm very well aware that there are certain benefits to having, you know, these group classes, that kind of stuff, whether it's a sense of community, right? Like, for example, I Personally run like a group coaching program that is online. It's called my Clubhouse. We have literally hundreds of members inside, which I'm incredibly thankful for, but the community inside of that group is amazing. So like, if that's something you like about one of these classes, that's awesome. Or, you know, if you're somebody who likes going there because, um, it just like takes all the guesswork out of it for you and that's what you enjoy, then that's amazing as well, right? If that's why you enjoy it. The other part is if it just like, uh, gets you into the gym. I know I've trained a lot of people who like, Maybe you start out doing one of those classes and like, it's the reason that you felt comfortable inside of the gym and felt comfortable lifting weights and, you know, doing those kinds of things. So I'm not naive to understand that there are certain benefits to the style of training that, you know, those HIIT style of training classes. Um, and I'm not like going to tell you to stop doing it. I'm just going to tell you the difference between the 2 classes. I'm just here to tell you the difference between these 2 options. So before you like come and yell at me and leave mean comments and make fun of my haircut or lack thereof and my beard or lack thereof shaving my beard, I understand. So I'm not going to tell you to stop doing it. I understand there are benefits to it. Now with that being said, why am I going to tell you these differences in the first place and the difference between, you know, some of these classes and a real strength training program is quite literally just because I want you to optimize your results Inside of your workouts. I know for the most people that I train and I work with, you're probably busy. Uh, you probably just don't have endless amounts of time to be working out 5, 6, 7 days a week. You might not like have just a private chef who can just like cook all of your food for you. And like, you probably want to make sure your return on your investment is there. You are going to invest time, energy, mental effort into the gym, right? Into your workouts. I would assume that you want a return on those investments, right? And that return being is seeing progress inside of your workouts. Now, I'm also not going to sit here and tell you that, uh, you know, doing some of these style classes like isn't going to get you results, mainly in the beginner stage of you, uh, you know, getting into your workout career, your fitness journey. If you do those, you know, style of classes, you'll probably see results, but that's because You're a beginner and you will see results no matter what you do. You went from sitting on the couch to doing some weightlifting. You went from doing just cardio to doing some weightlifting. Like if you go from doing nothing to then doing something, yes, you are going to see progress no matter what. And what I will tell you though is this, and I can tell you this because I've just coached enough people to know, and this might be you right now actually, you will see some progress initially maybe, What will happen though over time is that progress is going to slowly dwindle down and then you're going to end up not seeing much progress at all, if whatsoever. And what I mean by progress is like getting stronger, building muscles, seeing your body change, all of that stuff. What happens is over time you get used to it. You're not a beginner anymore and you're going to need a proper strength training program in order for you to actually continue to see progress in the long run. Which is why if you just started like doing some of these classes, you know, 6 months ago, a year ago, whatever the case may be, and you were seeing progress and everything was great, but now it's kind of like you're not seeing as much progress anymore. Yeah, that would be why. It's because you're not necessarily following a properly designed strength training program to get you the results you're trying to get to. You got some of your like newbie gains out of the way, which is like, cool. Again, and this is the other thing too, doing something is always better than doing nothing. So one more time, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that like, You know, what you're doing isn't worth it. Like, it's always incredible to exercise, move your body. This video is for people who are trying to take things to the next level and optimize the results they are seeing inside of their workouts. So with all of that being said, first and foremost, let's now cover the main difference between HIIT classes versus real strength training programs. The main difference is going to be these HIIT-style classes Are going to be working more. Uh, they're a modality of training that is going to tax your cardiovascular system and/or your muscular endurance, not necessarily taxing your strength or your actual, like, muscle building process. Without getting way too in-depth here, the body is an amazing thing. You can give it something, right, like the style of training that you do, You can give it that and it's going to return with, again, improving your cardio or improving your endurance or improving your muscular strength. Like, but just because you're doing something, that doesn't mean it's going to end up getting the result you are doing. You have to, instead of taking like a, um, I think of like a shotgun where like if you shoot a shotgun, it goes like all over the place, right? Versus like a sniper. You want to get a little bit more of a sniper approach with your training. It's very precise. You know exactly what you're getting when you're doing these HIIT style classes. You're just going to end up taxing more of your cardiovascular system or your muscular endurance as opposed to getting stronger, building muscle, you know, seeing changes in your body, seeing more definition, toning— that word toning— a bit more. They're two different things. And you know, can they go potentially hand in hand? When you're in the beginner stage, maybe, but beyond that point, the way you train is going to dictate what result you are going to bring about to your body. And we're going to talk all about why here. I'm going to show you why the HIIT style classes are going to bring more of that cardio or muscular endurance as opposed to that like building muscle definition, building strength, you know, that kind of training and those kinds of results. Which again, by the way, if you're somebody who's like, you don't want to get stronger or you don't care about like looking better naked, you just only care about cardio and endurance, you're probably not still watching this video by now. You're probably like, fuck this guy, and you've turned it off. Um, but if you are somebody who does care about that, there's going to be some— I'm like, I can't cover every single thing, but there's going to be some specific things that make a big difference in which result you are going to end up seeing. And the first thing that is going to be a little bit different in you training for muscular endurance or cardio versus you training for strength training muscle building is going to be your rest times. When you are doing those HIIT style classes, what happens more oftentimes than not? You're doing very quick, fast-paced workouts. You're resting for, I mean, I've seen 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 seconds. Like, And you might think like 60 seconds is like a long time, but stick with me here. When you're doing those very short rest times, you are once again not taxing your muscles in a way where you're going to end up like building a ton of strength, building a ton of muscle. And I say like, I say a ton of muscle, I don't mean like being a bodybuilder. Okay? Like I've tried to be a bodybuilder my entire life and I I'm not there yet. So like you like doing workouts, like it's not going to happen by choice, much like, you know, you make dinner at night. That doesn't mean you automatically become a world-class chef, especially for some of you. And, you know, sorry to say that, but that's just the truth. So when I say building strength and building muscle, you know, I'm talking about like, again, if you want to, I don't know, go take steroids and be a bodybuilder, that would be up to you. But that's not necessarily the kind of building muscle that I'm talking about. I'm talking about building like muscle definition, seeing your muscles more, seeing more defined shoulders, more defined legs. Whatever the case may be. So when you are talking about rest times, because those HIIT-style classes bring about more of a you know fast pace, go go go, keep your heart rate up. That is not going to lead to you being able to push as hard as you can in the next set. Okay? So let me break this down for you really quickly. Because like for example, your heart rate is so high heading in, like you haven't fully recovered. You know you you just did a set. You rested 30 seconds and now you're trying to go do another set. It's not that like you are taxing your muscles from a strength performance. You're either taxing your muscles and going close to failure, which I'm going to talk about in a second, but you're either taxing your muscles and going close to failure through your muscular endurance, through your endurance system of your muscles, not strength and muscle building, or you're just taxing your cardiovascular system. You're not ending up taxing You know the system or the adaptation to end up telling your body. Like I said earlier, you can tell your body what to give it, right? When you're doing this HIIT style of training, you're basically signaling to your body: I am we're challenging and taxing the cardiovascular and muscular endurance system because when you're going into your sets, you haven't even caught your breath from the previous set. So you're like trying to go into the next set and trying to go into the next set and like. Push the weight and push your strength levels, but you're not ending up pushing your strength or pushing the weight you can lift. You're just ending up like just trying to get through the movement. That is not taxing your muscles in a way that is going to lead to you building strength and building muscle. Again, it might tax your muscles from like an endurance standpoint, but just because you have more endurance in your muscles doesn't mean you're going to see more defined muscles or get Stronger muscles. Think about like a marathon runner, for example, right? Like, and again, there can be plenty of people who run marathons, don't run marathons, who look a certain way. But the average marathon runner, are they like super defined? Like they might be like, I don't know, some are skinny, some aren't, but that's beside the point. The point is they're not super defined. And again, I know there's like, there's gonna be somebody watch this, Eric, I run marathons and I think I'm pretty defined. Cool. I mean everyday average general marathon runner, they're not gonna like look defined. That's because just because you have endurance, Doesn't mean you change the way you look. You have to be able to, to change the way you look. You have to be able to build muscle in that area and like actual muscular tissue, not just like building more muscular endurance. So as opposed to, if you want to get into a real strength training program, as opposed to resting for 30 or 60 seconds in between your sets, I would typically recommend you resting for 2 to 3 minutes in between your sets. And you might hear that and be like, Eric, oh my God, there's no way in hell I'm going to end up doing that. There's no way. It's going to be too long. What do I do for the 2 minutes? Oh my God. I already know everything you're thinking because why? Because again, I've already coached enough people to know exactly what you're thinking. Here's what I'm going to tell you. Number one, I'll link a study here below that if you want to read the study, it literally talks about how resting 2 to 5 minutes in between your sets is better for strength and muscle hypertrophy. Muscle hypertrophy is just like building muscle. So if you want to read that, I'll link that here below. But more so, number 2, let me tell you this. If you're not getting done your sets and needing 2 minutes of rest after your set, you need to number 1, push yourself harder. And number 2, lift heavier weight. Because if you are doing those 2 things, you are going to need and crave and thirst thrive for 2, at least 2 minutes in between your sets. And what will happen is you will then be able to fully recover. Your heart rate will be able to go back down. You'll be able to recover and then push as hard as you can in your next set. You'll be able to lift heavier weight. You'll be able to do more reps, which we're going to talk about here in a second, but you'll be able to do more reps with a heavier weight. And that will then allow you to tax the correct That will then allow you to trigger that adaptation response of, I, you know, hey body, I need to build strength and build muscle, as opposed to the adaptation response of we're just having a great cardio muscular endurance workout here. So that would be for the rest times. Now the next part, which I kind of already talked about, is the amount of reps that you are doing during your workout. When you are doing these very like HIIT boot camps, fast-paced workouts, What typically happens is one of two things. Number one, you're going for time. So like, oh hey, just go for 40 seconds. But it's like, how many reps do you do? And like, people just normally go for 40 seconds and I don't know, some people do 6 reps, some people do 20 reps, some people do 13 reps. Like, it's not a really like a proficient method to go about it. And a lot of people also just like try to just go as fast as they can and get as many reps in as they can during that 30, 40, 50 seconds, whatever it ends up being. So That's one strategy some people use. The other strategy is just like when you're doing reps, most people just bump the reps up to like 12, 15, 20, 30, like just very, very, very high reps. And again, I've also done an entire video on this exact topic on like what is the best rep range for building muscle and building strength. I'll link that here above so you can check that out after this video if you would like to. But typically speaking, when you are trying to train for strength train for muscle building, your sweet spot of reps is going to be somewhere in between that 3 to 12 rep range. And again, I want you to think about this. If you are trying to lift heavier weight, you are probably going to decrease the reps that you are lifting. Because just think about it, if you're doing 20 reps, don't you think you can lift more weight for 5 reps than you could for 20 reps? If you're doing a squat, for example, don't you think since you only have to do 5 reps, don't you think you can lift heavier weight for 5 reps than you could for 20 reps? Absolutely. So already you're going to be getting stronger because you'll be decreasing the amount of reps that you are doing. Since you don't have to do 15, 20, 30 reps, you'll automatically be able to lift more weight, which people find this like An absolute phenomenon. Like, try it, I promise you. And also, you're gonna feel like a fucking badass, for whatever that's worth. You'll be able to really feel like you're getting a good workout, really feel like you're strong, and really feel like you're making progress. But that would be number 1. And then again, number 2, piggybacking right on top of the rest times, because you are going to decrease your reps just a tad bit. And again, if you want to check out the video of, you know, how many reps to do, all that kind of stuff, I will link that here, um, in the— it'll probably be somewhere up here, but also in the show notes. I have a podcast too, if you want to check out my podcast. That's why I said show notes. It'll be in this, in the description of this video. But typically speaking, you're doing somewhere between 3 to 12 reps depending on the exercise that you are doing. And this rep range is going to lead you to build muscle and build strength a lot more than these very, again, already fast-paced workouts because you're trying to only rest for 30 seconds and having to do such high reps. If you bring the reps down a tad bit, You will be able to fall more into that muscle building mode and that strength building mode as opposed to once again, just the cardio mode. And one more time, these 2 things combined, lifting heavier weight for a little bit less reps is going to really tax you. Like people think like you're not going to get a good workout unless you do 15 or 20 reps. I just challenge you to try it for one motherfucking time. Go in there, you know, pick an exercise for 6 reps, Do that for six reps. Push yourself with the weight. Lift heavier weight than you would have previously. You're going to get done that set and be gassed. And again, you are going to need two minutes of rest to recover so that you can go and do that again for the next set. Think about it like this: If you let's say you're in one of these HIIT boot camps and you're doing squats, the first set you do thirty pounds for eight reps. You only rest for thirty seconds, so you haven't fully recovered. So then you do. 25 pounds for 6 reps. You only rest 30 seconds and you can't keep the same weight again. So the next time you do 20 pounds for 5 reps, you got almost like worse every single set, right? As opposed to if you're doing— you're resting properly, being able to lift heavier weight, you could do 30 pounds for all 3 sets. Don't you— 30 pounds for 8 reps for all 3 sets. Don't you think that's going to yield better progress in the long run as opposed to you getting worse Worse as the sets progress. So I also want you to think about it like that as well. So that's the second thing. The third thing when we talk about the difference between HIIT classes and real strength training is going to be progressive overload, which again, I've done a video on progressive overload if you want to check it out here above. I can link it in, you know, once again I can link it here, but essentially all progressive overload is, is just you're doing more than last time. Okay? So you're doing more weight, you're doing more reps, you know, you're, you're, you're just doing better, right? It doesn't even have to be, you know, in between each session, but just Oh, and it can be though, but over time, you know, 6 months from now, you want to do more than what you were doing, you know, 6 months ago. Right. And the same kind of concept with like week to week. If you do 30 pounds for 8 reps week 1, 30 pounds for 9 reps week 2, 30 pounds for 10 reps week 3. Right. So you're having this like almost like hand over fist gains where you're making progress, trying to make progress every single week. When you are doing a HIIT bootcamp, We already talked about number one, that's probably not going to happen because you're not able to actually recover in between your sets. So you won't be able to lift more weight. You won't be able to do more reps. You're not going to be able to recover because you're just doing more so a cardio-based workout than anything else. And so that is a drawback already. But number two, a lot of these classes will just do like new workouts every single week. Every single week you're doing a new exercise. So week one, you're doing a goblet squat. Week You're doing a barbell back squat. Week 3, you're doing a barbell back box squat. Week 4, it's a front squat. Week 5, it's a Bulgarian split squat. How do you get better with that week over week if you're doing something different every single week? If week 1 you do a 30-pound goblet squat for 8 reps, and then week 2 you do a 45-pound back squat for 4 reps, how do you have progressive overload? How can you get better every single time? All those things are different. So how can you have progress over Over time, if you're doing something different every single week, you're not, you're, you're not going to have the progressive overload, which again, if you watch the video on progressive overload, you'll know this, but progressive overload is quite literally one of the main things, if not the thing that you need in order to make your body change. Because what happens is, let's say you go back to the goblet squat, you do 30 pounds for 8 reps. Okay? That was week 1. Week 2, you do 30 pounds for 9 reps. Your body then says, oh, Oh shit, this is more stress that was placed on us this week than last week. We recovered and adapted to the stress, which is the workout. We recovered and adapted from the stress we had last week, but this week, this is a new stress. We have to recover and adapt to this stress. And then week 3, 3 sets of 10. Oh shit, he, you know, this person did more than what they did last week. This is more stress. We have to adapt to This again, how does your body change? Adaptations. Thank you for listening. Great job. If you make adaptations, that's how you change, get stronger, build muscle. So if you have this progressive overload, you're putting more stress on your body. Your body has to recover from that stress and then adapt to that stress. But if you don't have this progressive overload week to week, month to month, well, how is your body going to adapt? It won't. That's the whole point. It won't adapt. It'll adapt in a cardio endurance aspect, but not in a muscle building, uh, you know, strength performance-based aspect. So for those 2 reasons, progressive overload, massive thing you're missing when you're not having a real proper strength training program. And it's just, it's very hard to have this in a HIIT bootcamp. Like even like if somebody like, oh, week 1 I do 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off, week 2, 40 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Again, that's a whole different topic of like you're just at that point again, you're just training your cardio endurance aspect. You're not training your actual muscles and building muscle, building strength, things of that nature. So without progressive overload, very hard to see change, which is, this is the main reason why people will like stall out during these HIIT boot camps is because you don't have enough going for you each week to make progress and put that stress on your body. So your body has nothing to adapt to from a muscle building perspective. Performance-based strength-building aspect. It'll adapt with cardio, but it won't adapt from you actually changing your body. So that is number 4. Number 5, we're now going to talk about the risk of injury, which like, listen, I'll be quite frank with you. Both things have their risk of injury, especially if you don't have good form and that kind of stuff. But I, what I will say with the HIIT classes as well, because it's so fast-paced and because you are, you know, going from one thing to the next, back, back, back and forth, go, go, go. It's very easy to let your form decrease and end up doing squats with bad form or deadlifts with bad form or shoulder press with bad form, which ends up hurting your shoulder, hurting your lower back, hurting your knees, which let's be honest, if you do not stay healthy, you won't continue to work out. If you don't continue to work out, how are you going to see progress? You won't. You'll be laid up in bed doing nothing. So with these HIIT style classes, Again, I'm not going to sit here and like lie to you. There's a risk of injury for both. I understand that. But the risk of injury with a HIIT bootcamp class, in my personal opinion, the risk of injury increases because you're moving at such a fast pace. You're not able to keep proper form and you know, maybe you are somebody who's trying to push yourself. So now you're like trying to lift heavier, but you have really bad form and not to mention your muscles haven't like fully recovered from the workout that you're doing. So now you're lifting with like super fatigued muscles because you only rested for 30 seconds in between your set. And like, it's just a recipe for injury, for lack of better terms. And mentally you're so exhausted, you're like trying to focus on breathing, let alone doing the fucking exercise correctly. So it's just a recipe for an injury. And again, if you get an injury, I knock on wood, I hope you don't get an injury, but if you do, like you're not going to be probably doing much in the gym. So you You can't be consistent, which makes it hard to end up continuing to see progress. And so for that reason as well, just want to throw that in there. That's why I also prefer, you know, if you're taking 2 to 3 minutes of rest. And also if you're doing 20 reps of an exercise, like that's a lot of reps to be doing. Like, you know, your, your form is going to get sloppy. Like again, combined with the fact you're not resting, it's just, it's a lot. So before I ramble on anymore on that, the risk of injury increases, which I'm not the biggest fan of, obviously. And the last thing, when we talk about a calorie burn, there's actually one more little, uh, little extra note I'll throw in here at the end as well. But when we talk about burning calories, that's one main reason why people like, they'll try to go towards these HIIT boot camps because like their calorie burn is so high and their heart rate is so high and they're out of breath and they're sweating and so on and so forth. Um, if you are working out to burn calories, your shit's fucked. You have the wrong approach to what you are trying to do. Your workouts should be centered around building your body up with building up your strength, with building up your stamina, with building up your muscles, like building your body up, improving your workout performance, getting stronger, building muscle, adding more weight, doing more reps, having really good form. Like, this is what your workout should be based around. Your nutrition is going to take care of your fat loss. I'm very well aware that it's very hard to get your nutrition in check. I'm aware. I do this every single day for a living with people. I know it's pretty hard, but that doesn't change the fact that you can never outrun a bad diet. You're not going to be able to just like outrun your fork with your HIIT bootcamp. Like you're going to have to get your nutrition in check if you want to burn fat. And to be honest with you, again, you just don't burn that many calories during your workout. I don't care what your calorie tracker says, which Like, by the way, all of those calorie trackers that you use have been shown to be literally up to 90% inaccurate. So if you think you burn 500 calories, you maybe burn 200. And this is a problem because you think you're burning all these calories and then you just go back and eat more calories, which then makes you not be in a calorie deficit, which then makes you not lose body fat. So this puts you in a cycle of like you're doing these workouts, not seeing any progress, not losing weight, not building muscle, not getting stronger, But you're working so goddamn hard in the gym, but not seeing progress. Does this sound familiar? I understand. I've coached people through this. I totally get it. So just make sure you understand calorie burn. First and foremost, it's a minuscule difference anyway from you doing a HIIT boot camp versus you doing a real strength training program. It's a minuscule difference and it's not that much to begin with. Your workouts should not be focused on you burning calories. Your workouts should be focused on you building muscle, getting stronger, lifting more weight, doing more reps and Perfecting your form. Okay. And the one little last side note I'll put here is HIIT workouts put an ungodly amount of stress on your body. Your cortisol goes through the roof. It's just, it's a very demanding thing on your tendons, joints, ligaments, uh, central nervous system. It's just very taxing. So this then leads you to under-recover. Remember earlier how I talked about if you don't recover from your workouts, you're not going to adapt to your workouts, right? So once again, most people go into a HIIT bootcamp and they put all this stress, And then they don't recover. They don't recover, so they don't make change. All of this keeps happening over and over and over and over again. And this also leads you to have worse mood, worse cravings, more hunger, more exhaustion, worse sleep, which then leads to, you know, less energy. All these things start to happen all because you're trying to overdo it on these HIIT boot camps. So when you switch over to a real strength training program, you'll actually be able to recover in combination with— you'll have a more optimal program for you to be able to build muscle build strength, get stronger, all of the good things that you want to do. If you're hammering home these HIIT workouts and you're not seeing progress, I beg of you, man, like, it's time to make a change. I understand it's scary. I understand it's maybe not something you're used to. You don't know what to do. And listen, like, there are resources out there like this video right here. I hope this video helped you. If it did, give it a thumbs up. But I also have even more help. I have, for example, I talked about my Clubhouse earlier. It's a place where I write a new workout program every single month that people follow. We have nutrition guidelines in there. We have entire community. If you want to check it out, feel free to go ahead. I also coach people and I have a team of coaches who coach people one-on-one. So I'll link all that stuff here below in the description. But I'm trying to get this across to you because I know it's hard and I know it's different. I know it's difficult, but like you have to be able to do something different in order to get a different result. If what you're doing isn't working, you're going to have to do something different in order to get a different result. All right, so hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, again, feel free to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. If you want to learn more about our coaching, I can put that here in the description of the video, and we will chat soon. Okay.