Are High Intensity Interval Training Workouts Designed For Fat Loss Or For Lean Muscle Growth?

By Russ Hollywood


Learning how to build muscle is often a game of chance and opinion, with what works for one guy often not quite working for another. However, there are a few benchmark pieces of advice which have been proven by modern science when it comes to building mass and losing fat, one of which is high intensity interval training.

For almost a decade, HIIT has been restricted to those who want to lose fat while the people at your local gym stuck with regular cardio work. []

If you are trying to gain size you can get fooled into believing you only need to work hard on the weights, or that cardio work is dull and boring. However, recent studies show that muscle gains were massively increased thanks to the incorporation of HIIT into weekly resistance workouts in place of dull, regular cardiovascular activity.

If you are one of the many people who finds their cardiovascular activity to be somewhat dull and repetitive, the discovery that HIIT can burn significantly more fat while also retaining lean muscle in a superior way to regular cardio should ring like a church bell. This is the news you have been waiting for, after all. Finally, you don't have to sit on the bike for an hour five times per week!

The next discovery may well shock you to your core if you are a long-term gym user. Cardiovascular activity should be performed before a resistance training, as opposed to afterwards. Not only will this increase your fat loss results, but it will also improve muscle retention as well. Let the magnitude of that fact sink in for a moment, because over 90% of gym members insist upon doing their cardio work after they're finished on the weights.

A Canadian study found that cardio exercise followed by weight training was vastly superior to doing it afterwards, both for fat loss and lean muscle retention. This study dates back to 2001, but was vastly under-reported and so it went under the radar of many trainers.

One of the worst mistakes made with HIIT is the temptation to overdo it. Suddenly you have this wonderful fat loss tool in your hands and you will want to use it all the time. It's only beneficial when you are at your full ability, so try to limit your HIIT workouts to no more than four days of the week on average.

While regular cardiovascular exercise is good for your heart and certainly still has it's value, high intensity interval training is superior for both fat loss and lean muscle gains. If your goal is to learn the most effective ways to build muscle this year, then HIIT is certainly something you should be trying very soon.




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