The PERFECT 10 Minute HIIT Cardio Workout To Lose Fat (Gym or Home)

High intensity interval training, or hiit, is one of the biggest fitness buzzwords that's come along in the past decade. In fact, 1996 is when HIIT became famous in the general fitness world when researcher Dr. Tabata released a paper describing a new interval training regimen that he developed where he performed several rounds of alternating between short high intensity exercise intervals followed by a brief rest period. He found that this delivered superior results in terms of cardiovascular fitness, yet in far less time than steady state cardio. Since then, researchers have found that in most cases, hiit can provide superior or at least similar improvements in cardiovascular fitness, athletic performance and weight loss as traditional, longer, less intense cardio sessions do. Yet in a fraction of the time, for example, you can do 40 minutes of steady state cardio or do around 10 minutes of HIIT and experience superior cardiovascular benefits, which is so beneficial because we know that lack of time is one of, if not the most cited barrier to exercise adherence. The problem now though is that this research opened the floodgates to people claiming 5 minute HIIT workouts with promises of melted fat. HIIT has since been abused by the industry and its used totally out of context. I mean, most HIIT workouts that you find on the Internet and probably experimented with are not true HIIT and won't deliver the unique benefits that HIIT really has to offer. And in today's video though, I'll show you how to design a true HIIT workout for you to use, whether it's at home, with no equipment or at the gym. And then we're going to go through how to properly implement it to maximize your results with a routine. Maintaining a high enough intensity and an elevated heart rate is by far the single most important factor there is when performing hiit. And it's why most people who are doing what they think is HIIT aren't really doing HIIT at all. As emphasized by Dr. Tabata himself in a recent 2019 paper, too much thought is put on the protocol, with too little emphasis put on the actual intensity they perform it at. So to ensure you're working hard enough, there's two things you want to do here. First, during your work intervals, push as hard as you can or close enough to it. Being tired simply isn't enough. The goal for each of your work intervals is to get your heart rate to around at least 85% of your max heart rate. So lets say you're 25 years old. This would equate to a heart rate of at least 165 beats per minute. Now if you don't have any sort of heart rate monitor handy, then a simple test to determine if you're truly working hard enough is as follows. If you can say more than a few words without pausing for a breath during or shortly after your work interval, then you're not working hard enough. Oh dude. Brutal. It's simple, but it correlates very well with intensity. Second, during your rest intervals, keep moving at a moderate intensity. This will not only help increase your overall oxygen consumption, which ultimately leads to more calories burned and greater physiological improvements, but will also ensure that your average heart rate remains high enough throughout the whole HIIT session. But at the same time, just don't overdo it. Some studies even use just plain old brisk walking as a rest period. The key is to keep moving at a pace that will help you recover for your next work interval rather than hinder it. Next, we need to choose an appropriate work to rest ratio. Now there's no set protocol for hiit, nor is there a perfect ratio for your work to rest intervals, as numerous studies have found that various different intervals can be used to elicit significant physiological changes as long as the intensity is still there. When reviewing the literature though, it does seem as though a 2 to 1 work to rest ratio is the most time efficient as that was generally the minimum amount of time that subjects needed to sufficiently recover between their work intervals. So this could look something like a 30 second sprint with a 15 second brisk walk in between. But keep in mind that your current level of fitness is what's going to govern what work to rest ratio is most appropriate for you and your the only real downside with using longer rest periods is that the workout will take longer to complete, but intensity again is what's most important. So if you find that you're way too gassed during your work intervals, then you'd be better off using a little longer of a rest interval or shorter work interval. Something like a 1:2 work to rest ratio would be a good starting point, which can eventually be progressed to a 1:1 work to rest ratio and then even a 2:1 work to rest ratio if appropriate. Choose what's most appropriate for you and your current level of fitness and focus more so on intensity and elevating that heart rate. Now that we've got the intensity and structure of the workout nailed down, it's time to pick your exercises. You want to use exercises that suit your level of fitness, equipment availability, and do a good job of elevating your heart rate. But again, intensity is what's most important so you have a lot of freedom when it comes to exercise selection. If you're at the gym, a separate, simple, yet effective option are sprints. On an exercise bike, it's low impact, it's easy on the joints and has the lowest risk of injury. But you can essentially use any modality that you have available and perform your HIIT workout on that. Just be aware that some exercises, like all out sprints on a treadmill, will cause more stress on your joints and will have a higher risk of injury. And then for rest intervals, you would simply perform that exercise, but just at a slower pace. Now, if you're at home with no equipment, or if you just want to switch things up, then all you need is your body weight, as long as you pick the right exercises. For instance, one study compared the same HIIT protocol on all out cycle sprints versus burpees and found that if able to maintain the same intensities, both exercises were just as effective at inducing physiological benefits. In fact, studies have shown that burpees can produce an average heart rate of 170 beats per minute, which is similar to what you typically get with an all load sprint. But in addition to burpees, which I know we all love, some other effective bodyweight exercises that have been successfully used in various hit studies include squat jumps, jump lunges, running in place, mountain climbers, jump rope, star jumps and shadow boxing. You could simply use one of these exercises for your work intervals or a combination of them for some variety. And for your rest periods, slow jogging in place or jumping jacks at a slow pace would work perfectly. But the exercises that you want to avoid using are strength training exercises like weighted squats, push ups, or even abs exercises like sit ups. Those are going to be tough to reach your target heart rate with safely and in my opinion are better off done in a separate style strength training workout. So lastly, you need to determine the duration of your workout and how many rounds you want to commit to after you're properly warmed up. And this ultimately depends on your goals and why you're doing hiit. If you're trying to improve or maintain your cardiovascular fitness, then research has shown that a HIIT workout as short as 8 minutes with a 1:1 work to rest ratio is adequate. But if you're wanting to burn more calories for fat loss, then you're going to need to work a little bit longer since HIIT was primarily designed to increase rather than shed belly fat by burning a ton of calories. To put this into perspective, a study which used only squat jumps and a 20 second work to 10 second rest period found that after a round of four minutes of this, female subjects burned an average of 54 calories. So if you took a brief rest between each of these four minute workouts and accumulated 20 minutes in total, you could expect to burn just over 200 calories and potentially even more depending on your body weight. Similarly, a study on mostly male subjects found similar results with a 16 minute HIIT cycling session on average burning 209 calories and the highest numbers that I personally saw in the research range from 240 to 360 calories for a 20 minute bodyweight HIIT workout in male subjects. So obviously the range is going to vary depending primarily on your bodyweight, but generally if you're doing HIIT to boost your performance then a shorter eight minute session will likely do the trick. But if you want to also burn a decent amount of calories to aid in your fat loss efforts, then adding more rounds to get you up to at least 20 minutes would be best. So to put this all together for you, here is an example 10 minute home hit workout and here is an example cycling workout, Both using a 1:1 work to rest ratio. Feel free to tweak the work to rest ratio and durations to better suit your fitness levels. As mentioned previously, if you want to just focus on improving your cardiovascular fitness then do one round of this. If you want to burn more calories however, then take a quick break after a round if needed then repeat for another round for a total of 20 minutes. Just don't forget about doing an adequate warm up and cool down as well as for how often to do these HIIT workouts, this is going to totally depend on your goals. Generally I'd recommend between one to three times per week as they are quite intense and will require adequate recovery. But all in all I hope you were able to see what a true HIIT workout really entails and how to structure one based on your needs. Just keep in mind though that when it comes to transforming your body, HIIT is just one tool in the toolbox and it has its place. But knowing how to also properly incorporate steady state cardio weight training sessions and your nutrition into your overall plan is what's key to transforming your body as efficiently as possible. For a step by step program that uses science to guide you every step of the way to a lean muscular physique, then simply head on over to builtwithscience.com and take our analysis quiz to determine which of our science based approaches is best for you and your specific body. Anyways, that is it for today guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. Please don't forget to show your support by giving the video a like leaving a comment down below as to what you'd like to see me cover Next subscribe to the channel and turning on notifications for the channel as well as this all really does help me out. Thank you so much everyone. I'll see you next time.