A Beginner's Guide to High-Intensity Interval Training
Hey! I posted this for our community at r/HIIT and I think that there may be interest here at r/bodyweightfitness too. This guide has been written to support anyone in the Reddit Community who is just getting started with HIIT. Please share any information with us that you think will improve this guide and we hope that we can share knowledge from both of our communities.
Introduction
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a combination of high-intensity intervals with low-intensity recovery periods. HIIT workouts have been scientifically proven to be as effective and more efficient than traditional moderate-intensity endurance training (ET) at increasing your cardiovascular health, aerobic and anaerobic capacities, burning fat and increasing insulin sensitivity.
One major benefit of HIIT is that it takes less time than ET for similar health benefits. The American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 60 minutes of vigorous activity every week to maintain health and fitness. However, only 20% of the general public meets these guidelines. The biggest reason that individuals cite for not completing the recommended amount of exercise is due to a lack of time. HIIT can help you meet these requirements by combining high-intensity and low-intensity into a single workout.
If you have mostly lived a sedentary lifestyle or are completely new to HIIT, you should complete a Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) and get medical clearance from your doctor before beginning a new workout routine.
The Beginner's Principles
The Beginner's Guide is based on three easy-to-follow principles:
1. You must walk before you can run.
Although this principle encompasses many important messages for HIIT, the main message is that you should start easy and build up your intensity. You wouldn't be able to run if you didn't know how to walk. If you have not built an aerobic base, then you should focus on low-impact exercises like walking for your first month before adding high-intensity high-impact workouts like sprinting. HIIT should be based on a foundation of low-intensity and moderate-intensity exercise. Power walking is a perfect exercise for true beginners because it allows you to practice interval training without worrying about form and injury. You've been practicing it all your life and benefits of HIIT have been studied for people who are just doing a faster interval walking program. Slow then Fast. Low intensity then high-intensity.
2. The workouts will gradually increase in difficulty.
The concept of gradually increasing the stress on your body when exercising is known as Progressive Overload. Anyone who has trained for a race using a training program will have experienced this as their weekly mileage increased over time. As you progress through your workouts, you can gradually make the workouts harder based on your improvement. An easy way to remember this concept is by adjusting any one of the following three variables in the acronym FIT:
[h4]Frequency[/h4]
- The number of intervals in the workout
- The amount of workouts in a week
- The level of effort or difficulty of the workout session
- The intensity can be adjusted through speed, incline and resistance
- The duration of the working intervals
- The duration of the resting intervals
- The total workout session
3. Consistency leads to success.
The best workout is the one that you can do consistently. The purpose of the Beginner's Guide is to help you establish a consistent practice of exercise, experience the physical and mental benefits of HIIT, and learn that HIIT can be done anywhere, but it should not be done everyday. You don’t need to be going all-out to get the benefits of HIIT. Focus on establishing a consistent effort to workout, raise your heart rate and increase your effort over time in order to gain the life-long benefits of exercise. Consistency leads to success.
Three Forms of HIIT Exercises
1. Aerobic HIIT
Most of the research for HIIT has been done on traditional aerobic exercises (i.e. cycling and running), however any activity using compound movement patterns can be effective for HIIT. Some of these exercises may require you to own the proper equipment or have access to a gym.
The main examples of traditional aerobic exercises for HIIT include: Running, Cycling, Rowing, Stair Climbing, Jump Ropes, Swimming, Hill Repeats, Elliptical, and Walking.
2. Bodyweight HIIT
Bodyweight HIIT training has gained popularity online due to it's ability to be done anywhere indoors or outdoors. More research is being done in this area showing that bodyweight HIIT can also have significant benefits.
The main examples of bodyweight exercises for HIIT include: Bear Crawls, Box Jumps, Broad Jumps, Burpees, High Knees, Jumping Jacks, Lunges, Mountain Climbers, Push-Ups, Pull-Ups, Sit-ups, and Squat Jumps.
3. Resistance HIIT
Resistance HIIT training is gaining popularity through CrossFit gyms and many other fitness classes by mimicking the interval structure of workouts using equipment (i.e. Tabata-style intervals). In certain workouts, CrossFit athletes perform as many reps as possible (AMRAP) within a specified period of time.
The main examples of resistance exercises for HIIT include: Battle Ropes, Boxing, Bulgarian Bag, Kettlebells, Rope Climbs, Slam Balls and Weightlifting.
If you would like detailed HIIT workouts, check out our Workouts Page.
Three Steps to HIIT
1. Build a Foundation
Before you get started on HIIT, you should build a foundation and practice proper form of the specific exercise you are about to perform.
[h4]Aerobic Endurance[/h4]
- Building an endurance base will help prevent injuries during HIIT because it will produce muscular strength and adaptations which improve your body’s ability to transport oxygen to your working muscles.
- Some exercises are inherently easier and have a lower impact on your body (i.e. power walking, elliptical, rowing), so you should build up your aerobic base using those exercises before moving to more high-impact forms of HIIT (i.e. sprinting).
- Using proper form for each of the workouts will also decrease the likelihood of injury. There are many videos searchable online that show proper form for running, cycling, rowing, and other exercises, so it is not included for this post.
- Form usually breaks down during the later stages of a workout when your muscles are fatigued and you are less focused. This can increase the risk of injury and so it is important to perfect your form at moderate-intensities before moving on to high-intensity exercises.
2. Structure the Workout
There are several research protocols that were designed to test the impact of HIIT. Each protocol followed a basic structure that included a warm-up, intervals, and then a cool-down with various durations. Here is the basic structure of a HIIT workout:
[h4]Warm-Up[/h4]
- Time: 3-5 minutes (or more) of low-to-moderate intensity exercise depending on your fitness level.
- Note: Warm up by doing a low-intensity version of the specific exercise that you are going to do. You need to prepare your muscle for the intensity of the workout.
- Time: 6-10 sets of 60/60, 30/60, 30/30, 20/10 (Working Intervals/Recovery in seconds).
- Note: You can adjust the amount of time for the working intervals and the resting intervals to make it easier or harder.
- Time: 3-5 minutes or more of low-intensity exercise depending on your fitness level.
- Note: The cool-down is included in every high-intensity workout because your muscles will need to recover from the workout. You can generally cool-down by walking or stretching after your workouts.
3. Balance the Intensity
HIIT workouts are based upon a balance of high-intensity and low-intensity intervals. The intensity level will correlate to increases and decreases of your maximum heart rate (HRmax). You should first aim to do longer intervals at moderate-intensities (i.e. 60/60), then adjust to shorter intervals at high-intensities (i.e. 30/60, 30/30, 20/10).
[h4]High Intensity[/h4]
High Intensity is the cornerstone of HIIT workouts. When ready, you should increase the intensity of the workouts during your working intervals so that your heart rate is around 80-95% of your HRmax. There are a few ways to increase the intensity of your workout:
- Increasing the speed (i.e. sprinting instead of running)
- Increasing the incline (i.e. uphill instead of flat)
- Increasing the resistance (i.e. heavier weights, weight vest or increased resistance on machine)
You should decrease the intensity during your active resting intervals so that your heart rate should be around 60-75% HRmax. There are a few ways to decrease the intensity of your workout:
- Decreasing the speed (i.e. walking instead of running)
- Decreasing the incline (i.e. no incline)
- Decreasing the resistance (i.e. lighter weights, no vest and decreased resistance on machine)
One way to estimate your HRmax is to take 220 and subtract your age from it (i.e. a 25-year old has an HRmax of 220-25 = 195). The research articles regarding HIIT studied HRmax in various ranges. Here is a chart from the American College of Sports Medicine that will help you differentiate between your own high-intensity and low-intensity intervals. The chart also provides information relating to the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) which is a subjective measure of how difficult the workout feels for you.
| Low (i.e. Walking) | 57-63% | Very light to fairly light |
| Moderate (i.e. ET) | 64-76% | Fairly light to somewhat hard |
| Vigorous (i.e. HIIT) | 77-95% | Somewhat hard to very hard |
| All-Out (i.e. Sprinting) | >95% | Very hard |
Intensity
HRmax
RPE
Beginner's Routine (4-weeks)
Overview
The Beginner's Routine has three HIIT workouts that will be completed three times per week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) for four weeks. If you are an intermediate or advanced athlete, this will be too easy for you. You should adjust the intensity of the program to make it more difficult. Here are the three true beginner workout intervals:
- Power/Walk (60/60) – 7 sets of 60 seconds of power walking and 60 seconds of walking.
- Jog/Walk (30/60) – 6 sets of 30 seconds of jogging and 60 seconds of walking.
- Incline Jog/Walk (30/60) – 6 sets of 30 seconds of incline jogging and 60 seconds walking.
Workouts
[h4]Beginner 1 - Power/Walk[/h4]
| Warm-Up | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace |
| Intervals | 7 sets x (60 seconds of power walking / 60 seconds of walking) |
| Cool-Down | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace and/or stretching |
| Total Time | 20 minutes |
Workout
Details
[h4]Beginner 2 - Jog/Walk[/h4]
| Warm-Up | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace |
| Intervals | 6 sets x (30 seconds of easy jogging / 60 seconds of walking) |
| Cool-Down | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace and/or stretching |
| Total Time | 15 minutes |
Workout
Details
[h4]Beginner 3 - Incline Jog/Walk[/h4]
| Warm-Up | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace |
| Intervals | 6 sets x (30 seconds of jogging at incline / 60 seconds of walking) |
| Cool-Down | 3 minutes of walking at an easy pace and/or stretching |
| Total Time | 15 minutes |
Workout
Details
Beginner's Schedule
| 1 | Power/Walk | Rest | Jog/Walk | Rest | Power/Walk | Outdoors | Rest |
| 2 | Jog/Walk | Rest | Power/Walk | Rest | Jog/Walk | Outdoors | Rest |
| 3 | Incline Jog/Walk | Rest | Power/Walk | Rest | Jog/Walk | Outdoors | Rest |
| 4 | Incline Jog/Walk | Rest | Jog/Walk | Rest | Incline Jog/Walk | Outdoors | Rest |
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
[h4]Rest Days[/h4]
Although there are no scheduled workouts for Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, our philosophy for rest days is that you should participate in active recovery. Active recovery means taking the stairs rather than the elevator at work. Heading outdoors during the day for sunlight and Vitamin D. Walking around the office building during a lunch break. Anything that keeps you moving with a low-impact exercise (like walking, elliptical, stretching or foam rolling) at an easy pace which will allow your muscles to recover faster and decrease fatigue. We have marked Saturday on the calendar as a day to consciously go outdoors. Light activity helps your muscles recover fast after a workout because it promotes blood flow and the transportation of nutrients to the active muscle groups. Take advantage of your rest days and go outdoors!
[h4]Post-Workout Analysis[/h4]
At the end of each workout, you can do a post-workout analysis to review whether the workout was too easy or difficult. By doing this analysis, you will understand what is working for you and what can be changed. The four week plan will guide your progression, but you are in control and can always adjust the variables that make these workouts more or less frequent, intense, and time consuming. The five questions in the post-workout analysis are:
- How did the workout feel from a scale of 1 to 10 (easy to hard)?
- Did I complete each interval as expected?
- Do I want to change the intensity level during the next workout? Why or why not?
- How will I change the intensity level during the next workout?
- What is my goal for today?
Additional Resources
If you would like detailed HIIT workouts, check out our r/HIIT's Workouts Page.
If you are interested in reading about the health benefits of HIIT, review our r/HIIT's Research Page.
If you have any questions, read r/HIIT's FAQ and then ask us!
