By John Robbins
High Intensity Interval Training, aka HIIT, is wrong for most people. It’s not a training method at all. It’s a peaking mechanism for top athletes. It’s certainly not for the average fitness club member to do frequently. Why not?
Let’s go back to the beginning. The study by Tabata popularized HIIT. Professor Izumi Tabata and a number of other Japanese authors published a study in 1996 called “Effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max.” In a nutshell, they compared the effects of 6 weeks of moderate intensity endurance training with high intensity intermittent training consisting of 20 seconds work followed by 10 seconds rest for 7-8 sets, 4 days a week for 6 weeks (one day was moderate endurance work). Their results showed significantly improved VO2 Max and anaerobic capacity. Moderate intensity endurance training improved VO2 Max but did nothing to improve anaerobic capacity.
Who were the subjects in the study? According to the website Tabatatraining.com, “the original Tabata protocol research was performed on serious athletes with a professional sports scientist.” They trained to exhaustion on a Cyclometer. Doesn’t sound like fun to me, nor something I would be interested in doing. Exercise should be a joy, not a chore(1).
HIIT is not a training method, it’s for peaking. Especially, the Tabata Protocol, which is extremely taxing. Scienceofrunning.com has an excellent article on the history of interval training. Interval training is great and can be used often, as Emil Zatopek demonstrated, assuming you are using it intellegently. Fartlek, or by feel, interval training is also excellent. Just remember, HIIT is different than Interval Training. Much less intense than HIIT and with much longer rest periods between work periods. Regular interval training does need to be used carefully and judicially by experienced athletes but the chances of injury and overtraining are much less. It will be much more productive in the long run. One example is doing 2×20 second all out sprints on a bicycle with significant active rest between sprints (10-15 minutes). Most of your training session will be steady state aerobic work.
So, HIIT, especially of the very intense Tabata Method*, should be avoided by most people all of the time and some people most of the time. Have you tried the Tabata Method? It’s a killer. Huge lactic acid buildup and extremely taxing to the body and the central nervous system. This is simply not sustainable and not enjoyable. The High Intensity makes it very easy to overdo it and then you’ll see a decrease in performance even though your perceived exertion is still high. HIIT makes it very easy to induce injury, excessive fatigue and lack of motivation. HIIT’s benefits were followed for 6 weeks. I doubt most elite athletes could do HIIT for longer than 6 weeks, never mind the average joe at the gym.
What’s the effects of overtraining? Bad sh*t. Decreased immune function, peripheral and central fatique, altered mood state, altered reproductive function and impaired exercise function. How does that sound?
HIIT is trumpeted all over the internet as the solution to all fitness needs. Complete your workout in minutes. It’s efficient, burns fat like crazy, makes you super fit in only 4 minutes. And on and on and on. If you believe this, well you should go talk to P.T. Barnum (you know, “there’s a sucker born every minute” guy). Here’s what Dr. Tabata had to say about each session: “…An all out effort at 170% of your VO2 max. If you feel ok after the session you have not done it right! The first three sessions should be easy and the last two should feel impossibly hard…”. Do you really want to do this five times a week?
However, one example of how you could use it is as a measuring tool, a gauge of progress. Test yourself using the Tabata Protocol, 10 minute warmup, perform up to 8 sets 20s work, 10s rest, then an intelligent cool down. Stop when your form breaks down or you reach exhaustion. Record the results. Follow your training program for 6 weeks, then retest. If your training program was successful you should have completed more sets or more reps in the time period with less perceived exertion. Your fresh when you perform this and you only do it once very 6 weeks. Very sustainable.
Take HIIT and put it on the shelf as an interesting study but don’t make it part of your regular training. So what should you do instead?
First, work with a fitness professional, set proper goals and then devise a program to achieve those goals. Measure periodically and adjust. Second, Continuity of Training(2). Continuity of training is continuing a series of exercises over a long period of time (months and years). The less change the better, especially for beginners. This ensures that you master the exercise, minimize soreness (and injury!) and let your body adapt by becoming stronger and fitter. Excellent technique is a key component and if you’re changing your exercises every day or week how can you master the technique? You can’t. Choose a handful of exercises and repeat until strong. And remember, improvement only comes during the rest phase when your body adapts to the load and becomes stronger. If you don’t give your body enough rest time, you just wasted your time, energy and effort. The two other StrongFirst principles, specialized variety and waving the load will be covered in another article.
Going back to to interval training, Zatopek’s thinking was “I don’t want to practice running slow, I want to practice running fast”. Similarly, don’t train to failure. If you want to practice failure, train to failure. If you want to practice success, always stop if you are not 100% confident that you can complete the next rep with perfect technique. If you do train to failure, your technique will degrade and you leave yourself open to injury. If you’re injured, you can’t train, you just get frustrated and detrained. Continuity of training is the key and don’t train to failure unless your goal is to fail.
Good luck, work consistently, and Be Strong!
*Isuma Tabata credits the Tabata Protocol to Olympic speed skating coach Irisawa Koichi.
(1) Erwan Le Corre – Natural Movement
(2) Core principal of StrongFirst