HIIT Your Way to Effective Fitness

One of the contradictions of life is that we all know what we should do to be healthy, but doing it always seems to be another matter. Whether it be eating more fruits and vegetables, sleeping for a full eight hours or exercising, it always seems incompatible with our life style, and we are never able to find the time. Because of this, every little motivation to get you to do the right thing can be helpful. And this is where the Seven-minute HIIT can come in.

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. Essentially what this refers to is a type of exercise that is focussed on short bursts of very high intensity exercise followed by short rests before
performing the next episode of high intensity exercise. The idea behind this is that you can get much the same or even more value out of a short, intensive work out than a longer lower intensity work out such as running.

The Seven Minute HIIT routine is an evidence based routine published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal that is designed to satisfy the cardiovascular and muscular requirements necessary to maintain a basic, appropriate level of fitness.

Additionally, it is made very easy. In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfils the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort.

There is a good evidence base that suggests HIIT provides many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training in significantly less time. Seven minutes is an affordable amount of time in anyone’s days. It really is difficult to justify not putting aside seven minutes in order to obtain and maintain fitness.

The important part however is the intensity. This routine is designed to be performed in an extremely intensive manner with only brief rests between exercises. The exercises should be
performed in rapid succession for 30 second each with the intensity graded as an 8/10 discomfort. The seven minutes themselves should, essentially, unpleasant, but the reward is that it is done and dusted in all of seven minutes.

Muscular exhaustion is prevented by alternating movements that focus on large muscle groups, for example you won’t find yourself working your upper body twice in a row. Instead you will be doing lower body, upper body and then core to ensure capacity to continue.

The Seven Minute HIIT Workout includes twelve exercises. These are: jumping jacks, wall sits, push-ups, abdominal crunches, chair step-ups, squats, triceps dips on chair, planks, high knees running in place, lunges, push-up and rotations, and side planks.

So if you are looking for a way to motivate change and get started on your fitness, this may be the way to go. Go out there and get started on your fitness and free up time for all the other things you’re busy doing.