Hiit | Project Swole

Posts Tagged ‘hiit’

How to do Wall Balls

Friday, July 9th, 2010

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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Tags: cardio, cardiovascular, Conditioning, Crossfit, full body, hiit, hirt, wall balls
Posted in Conditioning, Crossfit, Exercise Technique | 2 Comments »

21 Tips to Sprint Faster

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

How to Sprint Faster

Sprinting is the foundation of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), and will make your legs big, strong, fast, and powerful. Sprints are great for developing endurance, but also for developing lean muscle mass and speed strength.

Ever seen a skinny sprinter? I didn’t think so.

Sure, squats are the almighty kings of the Gym Exercise Kingdom; but sprints are like the kings of the Functional Exercise Kingdom whose jacked-up, super-lean army of massive wheels is constantly trying to overthrow the squat as the #1 top leg exercise.

You think you can sprint, but can you?

Here are 21 tips you can follow to improve your sprinting:

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Tags: Conditioning, hiit, run, running, Sports, sprint, sprinting
Posted in Conditioning, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Sports | 4 Comments »

Full Body Fat Loss Workout Logs in an Excel Spreadsheet

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Now you can download the Full Body Plus HIIT for Fat Loss workout routines in Excel spreadsheet format. You can use these files to print out the routine and take it to the gym on a clipboard, keep track of your progress on the computer, or both.

The Full Body Plus HIIT Fat Loss Routine for Men can be found here:

Click this link to go to the download section of the post so you can download your spreadsheet!

The Full Body Plus HIIT Fat Loss Routine for Women can be found here:

Click this link to go to the download section of the post so you can download your spreadsheet!

I made some changes to the programs as well. Going through them I realized that there will almost always be time to complete those optional sets at the end of the routine, so I made the “e” exercises mandatory and added an additional abdominal exercise to make a super-set.

Tags: fat loss, hiit, lose fat, lose weight, spreadsheet, weight loss, Weight Training, Workout Routines
Posted in Workout Logs, Workout Routines | 1 Comment »

Fat Loss for Men: A 7 Day Full Body Routine Plus HIIT

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Build Muscle, Burn Fat, Get Ripped

Originally posted: 1/27/10
Updates:
2/1/10 updated routine, added Excel spreadsheet workout logs)
3/8/10 added example HIIT routines for days 2, 4, and 6.

Fat Loss for Men

Many of you are asking for a full body workout routine to burn fat, so here you go.

I have even customized the program for both men and women.

You can skip the details and go straight to the routines if you wish:

The Program

We are integrating 3 full body training sessions with 3 HIIT routines and taking the 7th day off. Since the goal is fat loss, we are striving to add some muscle mass, maintain strength, and burn as many calories as possible.

This is accomplished by staying in a slightly higher rep range than we would normally use for strictly strength training, while using super-sets for most of our exercises. We add an optional set to the end of each workout in case you are able to finish the workout early.

Major compound exercises are rotated to prioritize a different muscle group on each of the 3 training sessions each week.

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Tags: Conditioning, fat loss, full body, hiit, lose fat, lose weight, weight loss, Weight Training, weightlifting, workout routine, Workout Routines
Posted in Conditioning, Weight Training, Workout Routines | 129 Comments »

Fat Loss for Women: A 7 Day Full Body Routine Plus HIIT

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Build Muscle, Burn Fat, Get Ripped

Originally posted: 1/26/10
Updates:
2/1/10 updated routine, added Excel spreadsheet workout logs)
3/8/10 added example HIIT routines for days 2, 4, and 6.

Fat Loss for Women

Many of you are asking for a full body workout routine to burn fat, so here you go.

I have even customized the program for both men and women.

You can skip the details and go straight to the routines if you wish:

The Program

Major compound exercises are rotated to prioritize a different muscle group on each of the 3 training sessions each week.

(more…)

How to Make Interval Training More Interesting and Effective

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of pharmacy technician certification. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson83@yahoo.com

Change Up Your Interval Training Strategy

Interval Training

I enjoyed going for a jog early each morning, for about a month or so that is.

When it started to become boring and monotonous, I discovered interval training. So I varied my routine to sprint and then jog for 300 meters and 100 meters respectively.

It kept me going for a while, but then, I began to lag and find excuses not to go.

There’s no doubt that it’s one of the best ways to lose weight and improve fitness, but if you want to stay the course with interval training, you must find ways to make it more interesting.

And to that end, here’s what I did (and what you can do too) to make interval training more interesting and more effective:

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Tags: hiit, interval training, intervals
Posted in Conditioning, Guest Post | 2 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

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%

Beginners Training 9:1	Intermediate Training 6:1	Advanced Training 3:1
What is HIIT?	HIIT Theory	Anaerobic – Aerobic
Who Can HIIT Benefit	Who Should Avoid HIIT	Design a HIIT Routine
Sample HIIT Training Routines
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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Tags: cardio, cardiovascular, Conditioning, hiit
Posted in Conditioning, Workout Routines | 32 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.

Tags: cardio, cardiovascular, Conditioning, hiit
Posted in Conditioning | No Comments »

What is the Best Time to Schedule Cardio Training?

Friday, September 4th, 2009

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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Tags: aerobic, anaerobic, cardio, cardiovascular, hiit, interval training, intervals
Posted in Your Questions | 10 Comments »