

To be clear, most of the interval workouts researchers have studied focus solely on aerobic exercise. At fitness studios and online, these workouts often mix aerobic and resistance training. HIIT workouts generally combine short bursts of intense exercise with periods of rest or lower-intensity exercise. Here are six basic questions about HIIT, answered. The proven benefits of these workouts relate to a very particular type of interval training, and they’ve got nothing to do with weight loss. Often they promise to burn fat and “metabolically charge the body,” as Orangetheory puts it, in a short time period.īut there are some important nuances scientists have learned about HIIT that have gotten lost in the hype. And interval-based workouts are now popping up seemingly everywhere: at chains like Shred415 and Orangetheory, in group classes at YMCAs, on apps and YouTube, even in the routines outlined in Oprah’s O magazine. Recently, fitness professionals voted HIIT one of the top fitness trends for 2020 in a survey by the American College of Sports Medicine. In 2013, the seven-minute workout, popularized by the New York Times, appeared on the scene, and by 2016, the one-minute workout.

But HIIT didn’t really go mainstream until about a decade ago, when exercise physiologists started to come out with study after study demonstrating that intervals could deliver the biggest health improvement for your exercise time. Runners have used interval training for more than 100 years, alternating between sprints and jogging to improve their endurance. HIIT promises the best workout in the least amount of time. The trendy fitness regimen high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, epitomizes this feeling.

Modern life has a way of making us feel time-crunched and pressured to find the most efficient ways of using the precious hours when we’re not sleeping.
