No matter how overweight you may be, a HIIT workout routine will help burn off belly fat fast. In my opinion, it’s the best cardio for weight loss. While you can achieve your weight loss goal by combining diet, strength training, and even steady state cardio, HIIT can take your fat burning to the next level.
HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. To take advantage of the kind of fat burning you can achieve with HIIT training, a person works out at a high intensity for a short time, followed by a brief recovery interval. Generally speaking, you may sprint for 30 seconds and then jog or walk for 1 minute. You would repeat this workout routine numerous times for the best effect.
The HIIT workout provides many advantages that are not normally found with other workout techniques. Your legs get a good workout with a HIIT workout. Unless you want bulging leg muscles, you shouldn’t need to do strength training for your legs if you perform a HIIT workout a few times a week. And, of course, HIIT cranks up the fat burning potential of your body! Doing the intense intervals causes fatty acids to be released into the bloodstream. Additionally, HIIT results in increased HGH levels. HGH is a hormone that burns fat while preserving muscle. Finally, and possibly most importantly, HIIT results in EPOC, an after-burn effect which causes you to burn calories for hours after your workout is completed.
HIIT is not a perfect system. For example, it is not meant to be done every day. It is easy to over train your body if you’re doing strength training for your leg muscles in addition to HIIT. This can be a serious condition where the muscles become over tired and more prone to injury. To avoid this, it is best to vary your cardio routine from day to day.
There are a few components of HIIT that you can vary. You can adjust the time of your sprints. Shorter intervals of 15-30 seconds allow you to exert more effort during the sprints. This increased exertion will help release more HGH into your system. And a shorter sprint interval releases more fatty acids into your bloodstream.
Longer intervals of greater than 30 seconds require more perceived effort. This results in the body burning more calories. And exerting yourself for a longer period depletes the level of glycogen (carbohydrates) in your system, encouraging your body to burn more fat after you have finished your workout.
The length of your recovery period is also important in an HIIT workout. This is the lower exertion part, walking or jogging, of your workout that gives your muscles a moment to recoup. You spend a certain amount of recovery time relative to the amount of sprint time. If your ratio is at 1:1, for example, if you sprint for 30 seconds and then recover for 30 seconds. If you sprint for 15 seconds and recover for 45 seconds, the ratio is 3:1.
When your recovery interval is longer, 2 or 3:1 for example, your high intensity interval can be more strenuous. The more exertion, the more HGH your body can release. Longer recovery intervals protects your muscles from becoming overtrained and lessens the chance of injury.
A short recovery relative to the sprint interval (1:1) results in lactic acid buildup, glycogen depletion, and a greater after-burn effect (EPOC). This can also cause a greater risk of overtraining the muscles.
In my opinion, the best cardio for weight loss combines these HIIT workout routines resulting in a strong HGH release, release of fatty acids, glycogen depletion, and calorie burning. Your workout should start with the short sprint to long recover ratio part of the HIIT routine. A sprint of 15 seconds and then recovery period (walking or jogging) of 45 seconds is appropriate. In this way, you will release high levels of HGH and fatty acids. I do a 2 minute warm up, then perform this HIIT set 8 times, for a total of 10 minutes.
The second part of my workout is 25 minutes of steady state cardio (an exercise bike or light paced jogging). This provides an active recovery for your muscles. Additionally, steady state cardio helps burn the fatty acids that short interval HIIT released into the bloodstream.
The final phase is performing long interval HIIT with short recovery periods. This will fully deplete your body of glycogen allowing for a greater after-burn effect and fat burning once your workout is complete. I combine 1 minute of sprinting intervals with 1 minute of jogging or walking. You won’t want to exert yourself so much for the sprint intervals here as your muscles will already be tired. It’s best to keep this final phase to around 10 minutes as well.
This gives you a complete 45 minute HIIT workout that provides the best cardio for weight loss. This routine should allow you to burn belly fat fast no matter how close or far you are from your ideal weight.
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