The article I linked to earlier focused on HIIE and its affects on the body. It compared numerous studies with different groups of people. Some studies used non-trained males and females and had some do HIIE training and others do steady state cardio. The variables were the types of people (athlete non-athlete), type of workout (HIIE and slow and steady cardio), and the duration of the HIIE vs the duration of the cardio. The results of the review were pretty clear: Picture of HIIE dominating and another . I am no biologist or physiologist or anything. From what I read and learned from this article was that for any person training with HIIE has numerous benefits over cardio. Aside from the fact that you can do a Tabata-esque workout in 20min or less, the physiological changes and the body's hormonal response to the HIIE training are much greater than that of slow steady cardio. The article made mention of the fact that HIIE training was most beneficial, in regards to sub-cutaneous fat loss, for people already considered obese. The problem with this is that most people will not benefit simply because they are not comfortable with the discomfort such workouts demand. Fat people would benefit most but they didn't get fat by sprinting 20m and then jogging for 10m x20. They got fat by consuming more calories than they burned, overly simplistic I know but mas o menos, and not exercising. This type of intense exercise, while shown to be most beneficial to the obese, will not likely be very popular with that demographic.
The article talks of catecholamines...I had no idea what these were but after doing some reading discovered this was a little molecule that is responsible for your fight or flight response (adrenaline is an example). This is a molecule associated with stress, and in the case of working out proves to be highly beneficial. Studies have shown that an HIIE type of workout for 20min found significantly increased levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine (adreniline and noradreniline). OK..so what the hell does that even mean? Well, these molecules are known to drive lipolosys which means fat burning. So, if theory proves correct, the more you have of these molecules floating around in your blood the more, and the better, your body will be at burning fat. There is further evidence that this hypothesis is correct as shown here: The Fat Burning Table. You can see the trend for fat burning that the HIIE groups have. If you look at the picture you will notice multiple different trends, all positive for a person who desires to be fit. What I found especially interesting was the increase in VO2 max for just doing these rinky-dink HIIE exercises! I must add here that the largest increase in VO2 max was seen in the group doing steady state exercise (SSE) for 45min on the bike. The cohort here was 45 and older with BMI's of 30 or more. Anything a group like this does would get them in shape. The point being is that for athletic people, or former athletes who are looking to get back into shape, HIIE seems to be the way to go. Quick, efficient, and with great results. The only caveat being you have to go all out which most people are not comfortable with. The intensity demanded to obtain these results are not something a newbie would typically take to. I wonder how results would come by playing with frequency. Do you still see benefits over simple cardio by performing HIIE once per week? Twice per week? Where does one start to see the deleterious effects of overtraining in elite athletes? It is impossible to maintain this intensity over a long period of time. I will still grind the gears about it and hopefully come up with some intelligent questions to ask someone who knows what they are talking about.
I will likely update this post because I suck at writing.
I will likely update this post because I suck at writing.
I am tired of typing. I was going to write about the stuff I learned regarding insulin sensitivity etc. But I think I will save that for another day. I also need to read up more about nutrition etc.
Cheers!
So theoretically if you're increasing your VO2 max *anyways*, aren't you effectively increasing your cardio too?
ReplyDeleteThey did it experimentally. That is why it was so cool. The VO2 max increases still came sans long bouts of cardio. So 5-20min of HIIE/Tabata exercise 3-5 times a week can work. You can throw this in AFTER your big lifts and you should be fine. You can go to www.crossfit.com and check the WOD. You can scale it however you'd like in order to get the type of workout you want. Be careful though because HIIE is intense and you don't want to do heavy squats and then 300 squat jumps or something ridiculous. Be smart.
DeleteDuh and/or hello. But you can do that in lieu of biking, for say 60 minutes, and potentially see the same cardio benefits (and better body composition benefits)?
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