Posts Tagged ‘cardiovascular’

How to Mix HIIT and Endurance Cardio

Monday, August 1st, 2011

How to Effectively Combine HIIT Sessions with Endurance Cardio

Ripped Woman

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please: walking or jogging for hours on the treadmill, peddling for hours on the stationary bike, climbing a mountain on the StairMaster, and plodding away on the elliptical trainer is NOT the best way to burn calories!

We’ve seen a hundred studies telling us that high intensity interval training (HIIT) burns more calories and fat, speeds up your metabolism, and is less catabolic than hours of endurance cardio. HIIT can also be far less boring, will actually help you build more muscle tissue, and increases your resting metabolic rate.

HIIT: Twenty minutes of HIIT cardio improves your VO2 max, burns a ton of calories, increases your metabolism, and maintains or builds muscle tissue all at once.

vs.

Endurance Cardio: Sixty minutes of endurance cardio is not only boring as hell, it also increases cortisol, burns muscle tissue (protein) for energy, and halts protein synthesis.
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Posted in Conditioning, Fitness Tips, HIIT Routines | 11 Comments »

Do Cardio After Weight Training

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Should Bodybuilders Do Cardio After Weight Training?

Cardio After Weight Lifting

Spend some time in a corporate gym and you will see hundreds of bodybuilders lifting moderately heavy weight for sets of 10-15 reps, then you’ll see them hop on a StairMaster or elliptical machine for about 20-30 minutes of moderate intensity endurance cardio. There are many reasons for this behavior, the most common being that weight training is just a hell of a lot more fun than cardio.

Apparently the weights-first-cardio-second protocol is considered the most effective way for bodybuilders to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. But is it?
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Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 9 Comments »

The Top 5 Most Efficient Forms of Cardio

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Excerpt from Muscle Explosion: 28 Days to Maximum Mass

The Most Efficient Cardio You Can Perform

By: Nick Nilsson

Interval Training is simply THE most efficient type of cardio you can perform. You can get pretty much ALL the benefits of longer-duration cardio but without the long duration. Moreover, you don’t get the boredom, you don’t spend all your time doing it, and you don’t have nearly the risk of overuse injuries.

In a Nutshell:

Low-intensity exercise is defined as working at a heart rate of about 60 percent to 65 percent of your maximum heart rate (equal to 220 minus your age; thus, if you are 20 years old, 220 minus 20 is 200 maximum heart rate).

High-intensity exercise is defined as working at about 75 percent to 85 percent or more of your maximum heart rate. Using the example of 200 as your maximum heart rate, working at 60 percent of it would be 120 beats per minute. Eighty percent would be 160 beats per minute.

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Posted in Conditioning, HIIT Routines, Product Reviews | 5 Comments »

How to do Wall Balls

Friday, July 9th, 2010
Wall Balls
Wall Balls

Wall Balls is a silly name for an exercise, I know, but that’s what you get when you borrow exercises from Crossfit. In fact, Wall Balls are a great conditioning exercise that builds full body stamina and endurance. It will also make you sweat.

This is an exercise that integrates perfectly into a high intensity interval training (HIRT) circuit, and can also be used to build high intensity interval training (HIIT) sessions, but do not translate that well into Tabata training.

Wall Balls also can be used separately as a full body conditioning exercise by attempting to complete X reps as fast as possible, or by attempting to complete as many reps as possible in a set time limit. Either way, it burns!

Medicine Ball Training

Medicine ball training has been around for a long time, and in fact they were used frequently at gyms back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ancient (3000+ years ago) wrestlers and other athletes used to train with various sand-filled implements, which evolved over time into the medicine ball.

The standard medicine ball is a weighted rubber ball measuring roughly 14 inches in diameter, although sizes vary greatly nowadays as you can get a medicine ball from the size of your fist to the size of your body.

Used in a wide variety of fitness programs, medicine balls can be benched, rowed, curled, pressed, squatted, tossed, caught, bounced, squished, and generally manhandled all for the sake of fitness.

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Posted in Conditioning, Crossfit, Exercise Technique | 2 Comments »

What is HIRT (High Intensity Resistance Training) and How Should You Use It?

Friday, December 11th, 2009

What is High Intensity Resistance Training (HIRT)?

Originally written: November 20, 2009
Updated: December 11, 2009

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High Intensity Resistance Training (HIRT) is essentially resistance training for fat loss, and like HIIT, it really is a big deal. HIRT training is the most effective way to increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), increase your Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), and burn calories at the same time.

When using HIRT you will execute several exercises together (sometimes called a super-set or giant-set), for a certain number of reps per set, for a certain number of minutes, without rest.

Along with HIIT, HIRT is a useful tool when avoiding endurance cardio while trying to lose fat, and it actually increases muscle mass more effectively than HIIT.

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Posted in Conditioning, Workout Routines | 60 Comments »

What is HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training – And How Should You Use It?

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

What is High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)?

High Intensity Interval Training, often represented by the acronym HIIT, is really a big deal. HIIT training is the ideal and most effective replacement for underachieving endurance cardio.

As a matter of fact, in studies HIIT is 9x more effective at burning fat than endurance cardio.

Female Sprinter
Female Sprinter

More often than not, I have talked about HIIT workouts made up only of interval sprints. Today I would like to discuss HIIT training with resistance machines, but not to be confused with High Intensity Resistance Training, or HIRT, which I will write about shortly.

HIIT training will give you the following benefits:

  • Burn more calories than endurance cardio
  • Burn more fat than endurance cardio
  • Increase power
  • Increase speed
  • Increase muscle density
  • Improve anaerobic endurance
  • Improve aerobic endurance
  • Speed up metabolism for more than a day and a half
  • Shorten cardio training sessions by at least 33%
What is HIIT? HIIT Theory Anaerobic – Aerobic
Who Can HIIT Benefit Who Should Avoid HIIT Design a HIIT Routine
Sample HIIT Training Routines
Beginners Training 9:1 Intermediate Training 6:1 Advanced Training 3:1
10 second sprints 10 second sprints 10 second sprints
20 second sprints 20 second sprints 20 second sprints
30 second sprints 30 second sprints 30 second sprints
HIIT Exercise Selection HIIT and Nutrition Get Protein Powder

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Posted in Conditioning, HIIT Routines, Workout Routines | 51 Comments »

HIIT Video: High Intensity Interval Training

Monday, September 7th, 2009

In the spirit of Project Swole’s recent focus on HIIT training, Jim Stoppani, PhD, Senior Science Editor for Muscle & Fitness Magazine and author of Encyclopedia of Muscle & Strength teaches you how to maximize the benefits of high intensity interval training (HIIT).

Some of his ideas differ from what my research and experience has turned up in my post describing how to use HIIT, but the video is still a great tutorial with some exercise examples.

One difference you might notice, is that Stoppani advocates a 2:1 interval to rest ratio, while my research shows a 1:9, 1:6, and 1:3 interval to rest ratios are optimal.

His ratio would mean 2 minutes of sprints to 1 minute of rest, while my ratio would mean 20 seconds of sprints to 60 seconds of rest for an intermediate HIIT routine.

While I am sure Stoppani is an intelligent guy, I still definitely favor more rest as it helps your energy systems to recover when you are truly training at maximal intensity.

In any case, watch this video. It’s great.

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Posted in Conditioning, HIIT Routines | 1 Comment »

What is the Best Time to Schedule Cardio Training?

Friday, September 4th, 2009
Your Questions
Your Questions

I get plenty of questions in various comments throughout the website, but I also get comments and questions via the Project Swole Contact Form.

Generally I address those questions through e-mail, but often I do not have the time to reply to each and every question personally.

The category, Your Health Questions is a more proactive approach to answering your questions so that everyone can benefit from the Q & A.

Scott wrote:

“First off very good site, very informative.

I am 33 5-11 170lbs. I just went from a split where I was doing 30 min low intensity cardio after the work out. I have been enjoying the full body workouts; I feel I get more out of it.

I am trying to maintain the muscle I have and get more ripped toned. Should I keep doing a low intensity cardio session after my work out or should I move to HIIT or some sort of other interval training on the off days?

I always read cardio after lifting or in the am is the best. So will I still burn fat doing cardio on the off days? Help!!”

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Posted in Your Questions | 14 Comments »