Active Living Newsletter
The Active Living Newsletter is an ongoing feature of our website designed to help educate athletes of all levels learn about new studies, training methodologies, treatment advancements/options, and various other aspects of sports performance related topics.
Our most recent newsletter can be found below, and an archive listing of our previous and current newsletters can be found in the column to the left. We hope you enjoy this online feature of the UF Sports Performance website.
How to Maximize Your Workouts in a Shorter Amount of Time
By Elizabeth Adams
It its well known that exercise training is a highly effective intervention to helping improve overall quality of life; however, when our schedules become packed and the to-do list seems never ending, we may not have enough time to squeeze in that daily workout. How can we still get the benefits of cardiovascular fitness in a time-efficient manner? Can a 20-minute workout really be just as effective, if not more effective, than hours of steady state cardiovascular training?
Yes! Sound intriguing? High intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) is a form of physical exercise characterized by short bursts of highly intense activity, followed by periods of low-intensity activity as recovery. This workout style will give you maximal benefits in the shortest amount of time.
How to perform a HIIE workout:
- Choose a form of physical activity you enjoy that can be performed at a high intensity such as sprinting, swimming, or cycling.
- Designate a time interval for the sprinting portion of the workout an interval for the recovery portion.
- Some HIIE protocols include:
- 8 seconds of a sprinting/12 seconds recovery. Perform for 20 minutes.
- 5 seconds of sprinting/15 seconds recovery. Perform for 20 minutes.
- 2-minute sprint/3 minutes recovery. Perform for 20 minutes.
- Warm-up. Perform the 20 minutes of intervals. Cool down.
Keys to making HIIE effective:
- You should be working at 90% of your VO2 max during the sprinting portion. This means your heart rate will be high and you will be working very hard (if you feel like you are working at a 9 out of 10 on a 0-10 point scale of muscle effort!).
- The interval recovery should be a very lightly intense form of activity such as walking or slow jogging.
- After your 20minutes cool down with walking for about 5 minutes.
Benefits of HIIE:
- HIIE can increase aerobic and anaerobic fitness.
- It lowers insulin resistance during the exercise and over months
- HIIE increased your muscle ability to burn fats.
- Increases hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) to help release fatty acids for metabolism
- Has a lower overall training volume per session.
- Can increased maximal fitness and lactate threshold: this means you can exercise at higher intensities for longer
HIIE is a style of exercise that is time-efficient and is effective in providing health benefits. Next time you are tempted to skip a workout because you are just too busy, give HIIE a try. In just 20 minutes you can get an great workout!
Read the Source:
Stephen H. Boutcher, “High-Intensity Intermittent Exercise and Fat Loss,” Journal of Obesity, vol. 2011, Article ID 868305, 10 pages, 2011. doi:10.1155/2011/868305
