What is Better Than Endurance Exercise For Endurance?
I’ve been a fan of HIIT and interval training for well over a decade. It jacks up the metabolism, increases your natural fat burning hormone (HGH) and simply helps you lose a lot more body fat than diet alone. None of this is news to those familiar with interval training. A thing that is not always known however, is that when you do interval training, you are better able to do endurance exercise.
Great Results With The Interval Training Study
The Journal of Applied Physiology had a study published in 1995, where they divided 16 participants into two groups. Eight people did two weeks of sprint intervals, and eight people were the a control group who did nothing over these two weeks. Both groups were tested for endurance capacity, before and after these two weeks. They found that the interval group doubled their “endurance capacity” in this short time period!
Endurance Benefits Better Than Endurance Exercise
So we know that HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) has been proven to increase endurance more than people who do nothing, but what about people who do endurance exercise? The results of the interval study, according to researchers, is that they are better or comparable, to aerobic- based training studies that lasted the same amount of time. The subjects in their study, increased their endurance capacity more than an endurance study…where the participants did endurance exercise for a total of 20 hours in two weeks (2 hours per day for 5 days each week).
15 Minutes of HIIT, or Two Hours of Normal Cardio?
When thinking that endurance exercises themselves, have less benefit to increase endurance than by doing HIIT, it is quite mind boggling. For many people out there, this is a huge paradigm shift. The facts of the study hasn’t become widely known, but the information isn’t new at all. Even today, when I go to the gym, very few people are doing any kind of interval exercise. This is something that makes no real sense at all! For at least five years we have known that Interval training can be one of the top ways to increase endurance, and for over 15 years, we have been aware that HIIT is one of the greatest at fat burning.
How Can Endurance Athletes Benefit?
For people who are endurance athletes, then it is critical for them to use endurance exercise in their training regimen. To be able to withstand the pain that comes from endurance exercise, the tendons and muscles must be strengthened. What I would recommend is a mix of intervals along with your endurance training. That way you get the best of both worlds.
How Does This Help Everyone Else?
After I do HIIT, I can get more fat burning going on, by doing a little steady state cardio. This also conditions my body and joints a bit for sports that require me to run for extended periods. With an absence of body aches for the next two to three days, I can run for 20- 30 minutes. That being said…I do limit this to about 1-2 times per week these days. If you are just after getting lean there probably isn’t any real need for long periods of steady state cardio.
