5 reasons to love HIIT.
“The one-minute workout” book review. Sample workouts.
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Sounds like some BS advertising of another gimmick, that will give you some (of course NOT 1-minute) workout routine, that will be based on some shady highly questionable science, and will give you ZERO results, or will be impossible to maintain long term, or will require some crazy equipment…
That what I’d think, if I just heard or saw the name of the book. I wouldn’t probably even buy it, dismissing as “just another time-wasting miracle BS”, that has nothing to do with the name, and for sure will not give me the results it promises.
Only I heard about the book on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast. I learned about it from the author talking about it. Martin Gibala, PhD, who spent a lot of time researching the subjects in examples in history of endurance sports, through experiments long and short term, observational and set-up in a lab studies, practicing the method himself.
And everything he said in the interview, everything I read in the book made sense. We can feel in our gut the truth, when we hear it.
Every detail of the explanations, why HIIT and one-minute workout work sounded absolutely sane. There is nothing, that you don’t understand at the end. All the workouts in the book were used by athletes, or special forces, or record setters, or regular folks trying to get from unfit to fit, from fit to fitter, and people, who want to maintain fitness levels for vibrant energy-full life and longevity.
The book is a fast enjoyable read with lots of workouts explained. You won’t even need to get a timer, the book and yourself are enough to get all the benefits, since the level of intensity is measured by your feelings, by your ability to breathe and talk during a workout. It might not be the-latest-gadget-precise, but most of the gadgets outside science institutions and elite training facilities don’t measure anything precisely anyway.
Get the book.
It’s one of the books, that deserves a place in your personal and family library, if you care about health, longevity, getting and staying fit, saving time boosting mood, confidence and energy-levels.
5 reasons why you will love HIIT.
ONE.
HUGE TIME SAVER
Who doesn’t need more time today?
I do! Do you?
In 30 minutes per week and less (depending on your workout style and goals, fitness level) you can get the same benefits, as if you were to train 150 minutes per week, doing traditional cardio training.
Congratulations! You’ve just saved 2 hours per week (minimum!) enjoying yourself more getting fitter, getting more done in life.
2 X 52 (weeks a year) = 104 hours total.
Not bad, ha? What could you do if you got additional 104 hours per year?
TWO
IT IS JUST ONE MINUTE OF WORK
In a workout, that gave the name to the book, actual intense work is 1 minute exactly, performed 3 times per week.
Meaning you do 3 intervals of 20 seconds of intense work with resting time in-between, and a short warm-up and a cool-down. All that takes no more than 10 minutes per day. You can do it even faster, shortening resting intervals and a warm-up/cool-down.
The main thing to remember: for the workout to be effective you got to go all-out (sprinting, jumping, doing push-ups, burpees — whatever you choose) for 20 seconds. So out you can barely breathe at the end of it, and you definitely can’t keep up the pace much longer.
THREE
YOU CAN EVEN WALK
Yes, interval training can be as simple as walking (so no one has an excuse not to do it). You will not of course get the same exact benefits as from all-out sprint, for example, but you will get fitter and definitely can use it as a fitness maintenance tool for lifelong fitness and longevity, and it will definitely assist a lot in your weight loss (done with dietary adjustments).
The main thing to remember here: do intervals instead of steady-pace walking, speed-up and make it challenging for a period of time (use your watch or timer app on your phone), then slow down till you recover and can do a speed-up again.
Steady-pace walking is much much less efficient.
The longest living people (according to the studies) did not walk more than others, but they did walk faster in the interval workout like style. Go-stop-go-stop…
FOUR
YOU CAN DO IT ANYWHERE
Literally anywhere.
Use a flight of stairs at home or office for run-ups or walk-ups, go down, go up again. You can do a few minutes of squats, lunges, jumping jacks in the bathroom at a conference or your office. You can squat on the plane even. Park, street, subway station, racing in-between stores doing shopping, hotel rooms.
Can you think of any place where you can’t do HIIT?
FIVE
BURN MORE CALORIES WITH LESS WORK
They actually did studies measuring daily calorie burn of people performing 150 minutes of traditional cardio training and people performing 30 minutes of HIIT training.
HIIT training burns less calories during a workout, BUT it has “afterburn” effect, meaning your body uses more oxygen and burns through fuel faster during 24-hour period after your one-minute workout.
So at the end of the day doing 1-minute of actual work, you’ll burn the same amount of calories as someone doing 30-minutes of traditional cardio a day.
Work less, get more results and have more time for life and fun getting fitter.
Works for me! What about you?
And here are 2 sample workouts from the book for you to use to get fitter and leaner in less time with more joy and more time for life!
(The book has many more workouts)
Healthy lifestyle trivia
You don’t get healthy and stay healthy.
HEALTH is a DAILY PRACTICE. One bite at a time.
Daily Bite of Health
