Anyone here do HIIT / Intervals? Can you critique my cardio charts?

[DanielReim]

Hi, all.  Currently adding some interval cardio training and I was curious to how [your] graphs are shaping up?  Specifically, I'm looking for your critique of my peak-to-peak times.  Are you getting better?  I typically do 6 peaks in a 12 minute time frame (excluding warm up and cool down).  I did 12 intervals once, and my body did NOT like that.  It took 4 hours for my heart rate to come down...

I am including three charts from a few workouts, and I'll categorize them as follows:

(FIG.1)  GOOD - I believe this to be a 'good' chart, but ideally I would like to think I can go faster from peak-to-peak in shorter time?

(FIG.2)  BAD - The lo/hi mix, IMHO, is horrible here.  I think my point-to-point recovery is very bad

(FIG.3)  TOO MUCH - This was coming off a poor night's sleep and took some effort to get the motor running!

Please let me know your thoughts!  I know I will get better times with due effort, but I'd love to see your results!

[Dominique]

When you say "four hours for your HR to come down", down to what kind of level? That would be the most worrying part to me.

How many HIIT sessions do you have per week? My understanding is you should limit them to 2-3 max., especially since you appear to be very active otherwise (based on step counts in your profile).

How old are you and what are your goals with HIIT?

[DanielReim]

Thanks for the reply, Dom.  Age is 34 and the goal is to improve cardiovascular strength & fat loss.  A typical day is 10k to 15k steps during the week and topping over 100k steps in one calendar week. I hit the gym 3 to 5x per week.

Currently doing 2 to 3 HIIT sessions per week and as many as 5 IFF my recovery is up to par.  I typically do HIIT after my resistance training.

My cheif concern is how rapidly I can cycle between PEAK and CARDIO zones,  It currently takes me 90 - 120s to go between the two and my BPM will cycle between 170-ish to 140 - 155 when moving between those zones in a training session.  I'm looking for advice on if this is normal or considered a 'slow' recovery between blasts.

[DominicJ]

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@DanielReim wrote:

The goal is to improve cardiovascular strength & fat loss.

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Not the answer you are looking for, but HIIT is a poor system for fat loss.

[DanielReim]

Respectfully, I could not disagree more.  

I can provide a lengthy post that supports HIIT as effaceous in fat reduction across multiple additional peer-reviewed medical submissions, but that's not what I'm asking.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the constructive commentary, insofar as it is [that], and would certainly be interested in reading peer-review medically tested populations with control groups that provides statistics to the contrary.  

Here is but one conclusion on HIIT from the US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health study:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/

In conclusion, regular HIIE produces significant increases in aerobic and anaerobic fitness and brings about significant skeletal muscle adaptations that are oxidative and glycolytic in nature. HIIE appears to have a dramatic acute and chronic effect on insulin sensitivity. The effects of HIIE on subcutaneous and abdominal fat loss are promising but more studies using overweight individuals need to be carried out. Given that the major reason given for not exercising is time [64], it is likely that the brevity of HIIE protocols should be appealing to most individuals interested in fat reduction. The optimal intensity and length of the sprint and rest periods together with examination of the benefits of other HIIE modalities need to be established.

[Dominique]

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@DominicJ wrote:

Not the answer you are looking for, but HIIT is a poor system for fat loss.

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What evidence do you have to back this claim? What are better "systems" for fat loss, according to you?

[DominicJ]

I didnt say HIIT is bad, I said its a poor method of fat loss.

Do your own experiments.

Next time you are going to do a 20 minute HIIT program, do a 20 minute steady state instead, as hard as you can maintain for 20 minutes, soo what your calorie burn is recorded at

Dollars to doughnuts its going to be higher than the measly 200 you log now

[DominicJ]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@DominicJ wrote:

Not the answer you are looking for, but HIIT is a poor system for fat loss.

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What evidence do you have to back this claim? What are better "systems" for fat loss, according to you?

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Steady state

[Dominique]

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@DominicJ wrote:

I didnt say HIIT is bad, I said its a poor method of fat loss.

Do your own experiments.

Next time you are going to do a 20 minute HIIT program, do a 20 minute steady state instead, as hard as you can maintain for 20 minutes, soo what your calorie burn is recorded at

Dollars to doughnuts its going to be higher than the measly 200 you log now 

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You’re merely saying that Fitbit trackers register more calories burned with steady-state cardio than HIIT-style cardio, which may very well be the case. However, there are a number of serious studies that show shorter HIIT sessions (eg. 20 minutes) have a bigger impact on fat loss than steady-state cardio sessions that are much longer (eg. 60 minutes). They clearly trigger something in your body that causes more fat loss. Your Fitbit cannot register this.

[Uzi_C]

Getting off track here, but: 

Here is the reason HIIT burns fat better:

“From baseline, plasma epinephrine increased 6.3-fold, whereas norepinephrine increased 14.5-fold at the end of sprinting (Figure 1). The significant catecholamine response to HIIE is in contrast to moderate, steady state aerobic exercise that results in small increases in epinephrine and norepinephrine [20]. The HIIE catecholamine response is an important feature of this type of exercise as catecholamines, especially epinephrine, have been shown to drive lipolysis and are largely responsible for fat release from both subcutaneous and intramuscular fat stores [21].”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/

[Uzi_C]

Your recovery seems very good actually. 20-30 beats drop in 60 seconds is very good.

From what I recall Recovery HR above 13 in 60 seconds is considered good, below that is abnormal.

I am trying to get FitBit to introduce Recovery HR as a Dashboard feature so we do not have to do all this manual calculations. I used to have it on my old Polar HR monitor.

By the way, I try to do intervals of 2 to 3 minutes and not more than 6 pe session with 2 sessions per week ( I am 20 years older. ;-).  The rest of the week is weights and Aerobic.

Here is what mine looks like. I Love Intervals!

[DanielReim]

Uzi, thanks for the insightful reply, but I don't see your charts,,,did they not upload?  I'd love to see them!

[Uzi_C]

Oops, got distracred. 😉