Are you ready?
Are you ready for the “HIIT & Run” challenge? If you are too busy, then READ THIS! You have to put yourself first in order to take care of everything and everyone else. I know you are busy and finding time to work out and eat right can be a challenge. Take what I’m saying to heart. You can’t look after anyone as well when you are in poor health. Picture yourself a few years from now with 10-20 more pounds and new pains in your back, shoulders, and knees. Is that what you want? Is that what your loved ones need? You are likely to run out of health before you run out of people needing your help. Take time out to love and honor you. If you don’t love and honor yourself, who else will? And why should anyone else if you don’t?
Love and honor you
One nice thing about these workouts is that they are time efficient. The workouts with this challenge tend to be short (8-21 minutes). There is a reason for that. I want you to really push yourself. If you are really pushing yourself, meaning going at about 70% of you maximum effort, then you won’t need to be working out for a long period of time to receive the benefits. The benefits, again, are fat burning, weight loss, improved endurance, improved strength, and likely improved overall health.
I’m guessing you know what running is, but what the heck is a HIIT? It sounds like some form of aggressive personal training, right? HIIT stands for high intensity interval training. This means that the workout has intervals, which happen to be timed intervals. It also means that the exercises are meant to be intense. The nice thing is that there is a balance of high intensity exercises, as well as rest and/or recovery exercises. The workouts are designed so that you spend more time in recovery and rest than in high intensity exercises. That’s what I’m talking about!
A little more about HIIT…
I like to describe recovery exercises like this: recovery exercises are exercises that keep you moving, but at a slower and gentler pace so that you can stop feeling like death. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit on the feeling like death thing. If you’re a beginner you may not be going at super high intensity yet, but as you get stronger you will start to push your limits. Don’t be surprised if you are nearing the end of an interval and all of a sudden you find yourself quietly praying for the timer to accelerate and get you to the end a bit more swiftly.
Now that you know what is going on, you may be wondering how this help with your weight loss and endurance. HIIT workouts are designed to challenge your body’s ability to recover from exercise and utilize fuel effectively and efficiently. As a result, even though you are performing intervals of high and low intensity, you actually improve your overall endurance. The better your endurance, the more you are able to tolerate challenging workouts. The more challenging the workout, the greater the need for fuel for the workout, i.e. you burn more calories. As we all know, burning calories helps with weight loss.
Of course you must also be eating a healthy diet to achieve the maximum benefits. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back! I’ll be posting weekly nutrition tips on Facebook. Alright, enjoy your workouts, and don’t forget to warm-up and cool down. Check Facebook for the weekly workout posts, and have fun!
~ Cece
For more on HIIT vs. Endurance training, check out these great articles:
http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/hiit-vs-continuous-endurance-training-battle-of-the-aerobic-titans
http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/healthy-living-article/60/104/what-is-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit/
Tags: diet and exercise, endurance, exercise and weight loss, high intensity training, high interval training, HIIT, HIIT training, HIIT workout, interval training, love yourself, put yourself first, rapid weight loss, run, weight loss and exercise, weight loss diet
Posted in Challenges
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