Did you ever know someone who goes full speed all the time but never seems to get anywhere? A big trend in the fitness industry is HIIT workouts. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Workouts. HIIT workouts are the equivalent of the person who goes full speed all the time. In a HIIT workout, you exercise as hard as you can for an interval of time usually 20 seconds to a minute and then have a short ret period between sets or exercises.

One of the benefits of a HIIT workout is that your body continues to burn calories after your workout is finished. This helps in improving body composition and your fitness level. Because of the intense nature of a HIIT workout, your body needs time to recover from this type of workout. Without proper recovery, the body is not prepared for another intense workout. Consistently training without adequate recovery results in poor performance, reduced motivation to exercise, limited or no changes in body composition and an increased risk for illness or injury.

Research suggests that HIIT workouts should be limited to a maximum of two to three a week with less intense recovery workouts on days in-between HIIT exercise sessions. Also, due to the intensive nature of HIIT workouts, most people find it hard to mentally push hard all the time. Both the body and mind need rest and recovery.

Along the same line of performing only HIIT workouts is the person who only lifts the heaviest weights possible in every workout. The same principles apple here. The body needs time to recover from hard workouts. As a matter of fact, without a proper recovery period, the muscles will not grow and increase their strength.

At Strength for Life we find that the best way to meet your fitness goals and continue to improve is to use a combination of high intensity conditioning workouts, strength and total body performance classes to keep your body and mind fresh and ready to exercise.

HIIT or heavy all the time will limit your progress. Instead of running around pushing the heaviest weight you can all the time or pushing yourself to the max every time, mix it up with a combination of HIIT workouts, reasonable strength training and recovery workouts.