My High Intensity Interval Training for blasting fat! :)

H I I T stands for High Intensity Interval Training. If you haven’t heard of this before, Hiit training is a form of cardio which involves shorter sharp bursts of exercise, followed by a rest period.

When it comes to fat burn, Hiit training is highly recommended over doing steady state cardio. This is because your body primarily uses sugar (glucose) during the intense exercise, and then uses stored body fat during the recovery phase as well as post-exercise!

So if your new years resolution is to blast away some unwanted fat, then I’d recommend that you avoid that steady 60 minute cross trainer routine and introduce some Hiit training into your  2014 workouts! ;D

Here are some examples of my very own Hiit routines which replaced my old boring cross trainer habits earlier in 2013!!

Remember: WARM UP FIRST! – Make sure that you do around a 5 – 10 minute warm up before diving straight into your Hiit routine. As Hiit training is intense, your muscles need to be well prepared so that you avoid injury! So for example, if your routine involves sprints then make sure you do a little jogging first.

1.     Bike blast

•          Warm up on your bike at a steady state for around 5 minutes.
•          Set the resistance so that you are challenged
•          Then make sure you can see the clock!
•          Sprint hard for 20 seconds
•          Then back down to a steady state for 10 seconds
•          Repeat the whole thing 8 times (Making a total of 4 minutes)
•          Cool down for 5 minutes

(You can also do this on a cross trainer, rowing machine, or treadmill!)

2.     Walking Lunges to Squat Jumps

•          Warm up by doing some dynamic squat and lunge stretches
•          Do 15 squat jumps
•          Rest for 30 seconds
•          Do 20 walking lunge steps (can do weighted for more of a challenge!)
•          Rest for 30 seconds
•          Repeat the whole thing 6 times

3.     Mountain climbers

This Hiit cardio works by reducing the amount of time exercising by 30 seconds on each set. Then resting for the same amount of time for each set.

• Complete as many mountain climbers as possible in 2 minutes
• Rest for 2 minutes
• Complete as many mountain climbers as possible in 1.5 minutes
• Rest For 1.5 minutes
• Complete as many mountain climbers as possible in 1 minute
• Rest for 1 minute
• Complete as many mountain climbers as possible in 30 seconds
• Rest for 30 seconds
• Repeat the whole thing twice

(You can adapt this routine to fit loads of exercises such as squat thrusts, squat jumps, burpees, star jumps, jumping lunges… the list goes on!)

And there you have it! ;D

The beauty of these exercises is that you can easily alter the intensity by introducing weights, increasing the times, or the amount of sets you do! So try them out! Let’s make 2014 the year of FAT BLASTING! ;D