Why Do HIIT Workouts Work?
When I first started going to a CrossFit box in 2007, I went because I wanted to prove to myself that I was still strong after my injury knocked me on my literal ass. After working out at an insane pace for so many years, just to land myself on bed rest, and then to be denied by the community I thought was my family, I was LOST. That’s putting it mildly. I was flailing.
I remember a friend telling me about this CrossFit concept of working out. Olympic lifting, hardcore interval training, body weight work, and gymnastic style exercises that could be done quickly.
Grab Free Workouts!
It worked perfectly with my work schedule, but more importantly it worked perfectly with my heard. I needed a mindset reset so I could regain the confidence I lost, and also find a place where I felt like I belonged.
Back them, CrossFit and this HIIT style of workout was not a thing. There was ONE box in San Diego, in a not so safe neighborhood. But damn did I fall in love with it.
I loved being able to move heavy things. I loved being able to move quickly, I loved the community I was in, and mostly I loved the results I was getting.
I felt strong.
I could do things I never thought I would be able to do, and never thought I would be able to do again after my injury. It helped restore my sense of self.
But no one around me understood how I could get results from a workout that was 7 minutes long.
HIIT now is a trendy workout. CrossFit is trendy af.
People love it because they see the same results I saw all those years ago, but don’t quite understand the science behind it. My current clientele included.
Here’s a basic way to explain it:
You know when you workout, your heart rate increases. HIIT training exploits the increasing and decreasing of your heart rate as a means to build muscle and burn calories.
Think of it like this: you know in that HIIT workout when you get breathless and you feel like maybe you might just barf?
That’s your body going into an oxygen deficit.
When your workout is complete, your body is determined af to restore it pre-exercise state.
It does this through increasing your metabolic state. Increasing your metabolic state means you’re burning more calories. Burning more calories means you’re going to see better results.
Granted, this rate at which your body can restore its pre-exercise state is different for every body, it does work for every body.
The way to make this work more efficiently is to make sure you’re pairing your nutrition properly post workout. That way you can maximize the caloric burn post workout, seeing even better results.
