Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1042: The Truth About HIIT- The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

In this episode Sal, Adam and Justin break down High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), the negatives, the positives and how to do it properly. The confusion and misconceptions around HIIT (High-intensity interval training). (2:43) Demystifying the ‘aura’ around HIIT. Who is it for? Not for? (11:45) What are the risks involved with HIIT? (14:05) When would you program HIIT for a client? Yourself? (22:54) Do you lose less muscle doing HIIT vs. traditional cardio? (30:20) The benefits of HIIT. (31:46) What HIIT protocol would you prescribe for a client? (35:44) What two things prevent people from succeeding at HIIT? (43:17) Biggest takeaways for proper HIIT training + Why MAPS HIIT is superior programming. (44:48) Related Links/Products Mentioned May Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off!! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** Twelve Weeks of Sprint Interval Training Improves Indices of Cardiometabolic Health Similar to Traditional Endurance Training despite a Five-Fold Lower Exercise Volume and Time Commitment Effectiveness of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIT) and Continuous Endurance Training for VO2max Improvements: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Trials Is interval training the magic bullet for fat loss? A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing moderate-intensity continuous training with high-intensity interval training (HIIT) The Secrets To Great HIIT Workouts Revealed – Mind Pump Free Guide Can HIIT Workouts Be Effective? – Mind Pump Blog Is HIIT More Effective Than Heavy Weightlifting For Fat Loss? – Mind Pump Blog Best Bodyweight HIIT Workout Routine For Fat Loss – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump TV NEAT- Walmart Diet Secret- Do this INSTEAD of cardio - YouTube

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. So in this episode of Mind Pump, we went on one topic only. We talked all about high intensity interval training. The reason why we did now is summer's around the corner, or maybe even here now, and a lot of people are interested in burning body fats, like the common most common goal, period in fitness, but especially in the summer, and high intensity interval training

done properly burns body fat better than anything else. So in this episode, we open it up by talking about what hit training actually is, and then we talk about the cons of hit training, how there's a higher risk for injury, how it's more likely to cause burnout, and it's not ideal for some people. For some people, it's the wrong way to work out. But then we get into the pros. We talk about who it's for, we talk about how the workouts can be challenging and fun. So a lot of people like that.

We talk about how it burns more body fat than traditional forms of cardio or other workouts. How it's great for athletic performance. We talk about who it's appropriate for. So if you wanna take advantage of the fat burning effects of hip type training in this episode, we explain who this person is. And if you are in this category,

you could definitely take advantage of hip to burn body fat and maybe even build a little muscle. That's the other awesome thing about Hit. We also talk about mobility because Hit training is not complete without mobility incorporated into it because of the intensity involved, people tend to hurt themselves if they don't do some form of mobility training. Now we timed this episode perfectly because our Maps Hit program is still on sale.

It's 50% off, but you only have two days left for this promotion. After May, this promotion will be over. You will not get the 50% off. Now Maps Hit was written expertly. We put this together. It is hit training with barbells and dumbbells to maximize the muscle building effect.

So we minimize the fact that you may lose muscle when you're doing a lot of cardio, not with maps hit. We also maximize the muscle building effect and the fat burning effect with this program. Again, it's 50% off. You only have two days left as of the airing of this episode. If you want to take advantage of this program, go to mapshit. So that's MAPS hit.com and use the code hit50 hit. 50 no space for 50% off.

And that's it, all right, without any further ado, here we are talking all about high intensity interval training. I want to talk about a good topic because there's still a ton of confusion and contradicting information in regards to high intensity interval training. Do you guys remember when that first study came out that made waves?

I want to, is it around 2003? 2002? It was like early 2000s, right? It was early 2000s when it hit and it became the... And wasn't it based around like an ergonomic bike that they were testing with? Oh, that's a good question, I don't know.

Yeah, I feel like that was the case because they were trying to build up like really maximal intensity and in a confined tool like a bike. Well, the reason why it made so many waves was because up until this point, the premier form of cardio, or I should say the only form of cardio really,

at the time, that was used for fat loss in the mainstream was this steady state form of cardio. In fact, I mean, up until this point, if I mentioned the word cardio, it was completely widely assumed that it would be the steady state type, right? Like, oh, I did cardio. Nobody, nobody ever asked what type of cardio it was always, they understood that you went for 30 or 40 minutes right? Right. I went and ran and swept my butt. Yeah. It's just, it's just a consistent steady state of intensity.

And this study came out that compared that form of cardio, which is what everybody did to high intensity interval training type cardio, which is cardio that's characterized by short, intense sprints and periods of low intensity work. So like you're on a bike and you're going as hard as you can for 15 seconds or 30 seconds, and then you go easy for a minute,

and then you do it again, and you repeat. That's the interval aspect of that cardio. Yeah, multiple variations came out of that for sure. Yeah, and what they did in the studies, they found that less time doing hit cardio burned as much or more body fat than more time doing the steady state type stuff. Which I think, at least for me as a trainer, I remember reading that. And I wasn't that impressed with all this.

I know that blue everybody else's mind had become the most popular thing ever. Then we saw everyone talk about epoch. But it's kind of obvious when you think about what you're doing, when you push the, in that 15 second or 30 seconds, you're going, the idea is that you go as hard as you possibly can. And you, you, you don't quite reach your maximal heart rate, but you get pretty close.

I mean, you're pushing your heart rate up to its max heart rate. I mean, it takes a good solid minute to two minutes, depending on your condition, but for the average person, at least a minute to two minutes of that heart rate to even come back to kind of normalcy. So the extra calorie burn that you get because of the elevated heart rate and then the body trying to slow the heart rate down and then it makes sense that that would be

a lot more work for the body requiring more energy, more calories than just getting on there and cruising at a consistent range. The reason why I think it was so popular was right before that, you know, when I first got in training with the big target heart rate trend was the thing. Right. Like, don't go too hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeahocks zone. Yeah, the fat loss zone. Exactly the sweet spot The fat loss zone is what we used to say and so I think we were I was on the tail end of The popularity of that and that everybody was on the cardio nobody was Only people that were really getting after it were if you were an athlete that's a training to be an athlete If you were there for fat loss everybody was over there checking their pulse and just kind of cruising along. Now, for the audience who might not be, no, we're talking about.

So when we became trainers, they don't really teach this anymore, at least they hope they don't, because it's stupid. But when we first became trainers, they taught us that there was a fat burning heart rate zone, that if you trained at this particular intensity that the largest percentage of the calories that you burned would be burned from body fat. Now that's true. It is true that if you train within a particular intensity, which is not too high, not too low, to just to kind of make

it generalize, right, that you'll burn more, a higher percentage of your total calories that you'll burn are coming from fat. Now the reason why this is complete, baloney, and why you shouldn't follow this is, yes, it may be a larger percentage of calories from fat, but if you burn a lot more calories, it really doesn't matter that you burn more from fat

at a lower intensity. In other words, if I burn a thousand calories and 70% come from fat, I'm still burning more fat calories and if I burn 500 calories, but 75% came from fat. I'm still burning more fat calories because my total calories were higher. And the real people that I see value in utilizing this, and I've talked about this before a long long ago on the show is, you know, where I where I still use target heart rate type of training is when I was at, you know, 3, 4% body fat getting ready for a show. Like I'm I have very, very little body fat on me. And there's no need for me to push the body any harder. And at that point, conserving muscle has become even more of a priority

than burning extra said calories. And at that level, you are at the point where you're splitting hairs because that's all that's left. Right, you've done everything else perfect. It's the only time in my life and my ever concerned about my heart rate. The rest of the time when I'm doing cardio, I'm doing and at the end of the day, you have to be at a calorie deficit anyway.

So if you're not at a calorie deficit, none of it makes a difference. It doesn't make it any different. Now the reason why we were sold this so hard as trainers is this was actually sold to gyms by cardio manufacturing companies, cardio machine companies, and gyms would tell their trainers to sell this because it sold their gyms. Because then what you would do is you would give a tour

of the club and you talk about the fat burning zone. Oh, you know, it's cool about this. The cardio that we have takes a heart rate, so now you can monitor. And that was actually a selling point back in the day. A lot of people didn't have heart rate monitors that they had at home, the only way you'd be able to test your heart rate

while doing it, cardio is either measuring yourself, or the cardio would measure it for you, the machine would measure it for you. And so it was just a selling point, and it's totally not something that you need to pay attention to, unless you're at the point where you are splitting hairs. So yeah, it was kind of a big deal, and then this study comes out that shows that high intensity interval training

burned as much or more body fat with less time. And half the time. And then the other thing that blew everybody away was because then other studies came out showing people lost less muscle. One of the potential drawbacks of doing a lot of cardio is because of the adaptation that cardio asks of your body, if I'm doing an hour of just steady state cardio, my body's gonna try and get better at doing that

by becoming more efficient, and the way it becomes more efficient is by reducing muscle mass. So it's not that I'm burning muscle, it's that my body's just becoming more efficient at the demands I'm asking of it. And so steady state cardio has that kind of bad reputation of potentially getting you to lose muscle.

Hit cardio doesn't do it to that degree. And in fact, there are some studies that show hit cardio may actually build a little bit of muscle. And it's specific to the type of hit cardio you do like sprinting out. Outdoor. Yeah, like sprinting out. Now, that fast twitch kind of anaerobic field. And how would you guys explain that? I used to tell clients that the reason is do like sprinting out. I'm sprinting out. Yeah, like sprinting out. Now that fast switch kind of anaerobic field.

And how would you guys explain that? I used to tell clients that the reason is because it closely resembles like plyometric training, where you're asking the body to move explosively. And so then you're recruiting all these extra muscles to do that, which sends a signal the body to build. And there's a lot more demand because of the force. And it's anaerobic.

And it's a short period of time. It's a short burst. You need strength. It's explosive like plyometrics, and then you lay off. And because you lay off like that, you send that signal like to build muscle. Right. Anytime we increase the force and demand,

the body has to adapt towards that, so it can keep everything safe, and all your joints safe. And so like you're telling your body now, you know, we're at this higher threshold, this higher intensity and we have to build, you know, muscles to resist it. Yeah. And like everything in the fitness space or the popular fitness space, a study will come out and then everybody will jump on board. And then that becomes overused.

And high intensity interval training is not immune to that. And so I think it's important that, because there are people that it's inappropriate for. There are situations where Hick cardio is not the best form of cardio. And then there are situations where it is the best form of cardio and it is amazing, it is a superior form of cardio. And so I think we need to break it down

and explain to people, you know, the cons of Hicks cardio. Who it's not for, the pros who it is for, how to do it right, just kind of demystify the whole thing so that people can understand. Was it also responsible for all the studies and the information that we saw that came out later with epoch. And I know epoch was big like in the 70s and then it resurfaced again in the 2000s and we hear I mean we even hear it now again with orange theory and stuff like that. And we've now found out that it's pretty much moot. It's not like the difference isn't that big of deal. But I remember

this reading stuff that would say, you know, when you do hit training, you know, you push the heart rate up so high like that that the rest of the day, your, your heart's beating at a little bit faster rate, which therefore would attribute to, you know, 70 to 150 more calories a day that your body's burning just because you did that hit session in the day. I think, yeah, they definitely brought it back, you know, to surface that That afterburn effect is they started to call it and coin it and that became a marketing thing as well. That's right there.

Yeah, so that between that and like the time saving elements of hit cardio, I think a lot of people started to get drawn in that direction because we're always looking for time saving, you know, effective ways to work out. Yeah, and then here's the other thing that really bothered me about the whole hit movement is that it's not all created equal. Now, hit is characterized by short, intense spurts of performance or exertion followed by periods of quote unquote rest. Not that you're totally resting, but that your intensity is much lower waiting for yourself to build up enough energy to be able to attack it again with an intense explosive burst of energy

performance. And so that makes that's generally what hit is, but I think people started thinking that it didn't matter what they did, that as long as they did that, it was all the same. Oh cool, I'll just do whatever and throw a bunch of exercises together and do a bunch of different things. And I'm gonna get a great fat burning workout. Yes and no, yeah, you are burning calories, but no, there's a lot that can go into making

a hit workout truly, truly effective for the body. But I do wanna talk about some of the cons of HIIT as well. I want to talk about some of the bad sides of it, because it's not perfect, right? Yes, it's better at burning body fat, but generally speaking, but let's talk about some of the risks. I mean, the first concern, obviously, is that, you know, you might, like, you might not be ready for this.

Like, this is a higher intensity style workout, where, you know, if you haven't done the work proceeding that with joints to be able to handle that type of demand and shearing forces, you're going to be compromised. That's one of those first kind of flags out there is, can I even handle ramping up my intensity? Have I done the work going into that yet? Yeah, hit, hit, require, because it requires so much more intensity,

the risk for injury doing hit is much higher. It just is. I could take, you know, 10 average people off the street right now, and I could put them on a treadmill at a moderate intensity walk for 40 minutes of cardio. And most of them will be fine. Most of them won't get hurt. I don't think any of them will get hurt. It won't be an issue. If I took 10 random people off the street and then had them do a sprint session, I can probably guarantee the amies. Yeah, it was like seven or eight of them out of 10. We'll probably hurt themselves.

So hit the risk of injuries much higher. So it makes it a very inappropriate form of cardio for a lot of different types of people, especially people who don't have excellent mechanics. Here's a deal about the way your body moves. However bad your body moves, it gets much worse, the harder you push it, it doesn't move better. It just actually starts to move worse.

So if you run terribly, sprinting will be way worse. Well, not to mention to that, worse. So if you run terribly, sprinting will be way worse. Well, not to mention too that when you do hit the idea of these intervals is you are pushing as hard as you possibly can. And as we get fatigued, we all, even people with great mechanics, that's when your mechanics start to break down. And so you want to be in a place where you have real, if you're running, for example, you want to make sure that you have really good running mechanics to start with if you're going to go implement something like hit,

because it's inevitable it's going to break down and the more it breaks down and the worse you are what you start off as the more at risk you are. It's a lot like plyometrics. You know, plyometrics are very, it couldn't be an incredible tool for some people, but a lot of people doing it wrong, a lot of people getting injured because they're not using it appropriately. Yeah, and then here's the other thing too, because of the intensity of hit,

type, cardio, or hit type workouts, the, when I'm looking at a client or I'm looking at an individual and I'm considering their entire sphere of stress. And the reason why I say it's a sphere of stress is because the body perceives stress as stress. Regardless of whether or not it's coming from a stressful relationship, lack of sleep, or a hard workout, they all go into the same bucket and all of them will take away your body's ability to adapt to other forms of stress. So in other words, if I'm getting terrible, terrible sleep

and I'm going through a horrible relationship breakup, my body's ability to recover from and adapt to intense workouts is much lower. So it all goes in the same bucket. It's that sphere of stress. So when I consider the whole sphere of stress, if I have a client who's not getting good sleep, hasn't worked out in a while, works long hours, you know, maybe they've got three kids and you know, life is just just hectic. I'm less likely to prescribe high intensity cardio on that person because the chance of burnout

is just much higher. Whereas the slow type of cardio may actually be recuperative, the high intense stuff just may be inappropriate for them. Well, this is the greatest problem that I have with it. Is that the type of person, again, that's attracted to this. It's really similar to the people that are attracted to most of the people that are attracted to the CrossFit, the Orange Series, the F-45s, it tends to be the people that shouldn't be doing it.

It's the people that are already, like to your point, are running on E already, they're completely caffeinated, they're taking three, four cups of coffee and minimum, they're grinding at work all day long, they've got a stressful home life, and then they're exercise. They love this intense training. So those are typically the clients that love

that type of training. Again, like the cortisol junkies that are chasing that. Yeah, so let me give you an example. Let's say you have a person who's high stress, not getting good sleep, diets off. They're maybe a little bit de-conditioned, and you had that person go for a 30 minute walk outside, and you're like, okay, this is what I want you to do

for your workout, do a 30 minute walk outside. Consider what that walk would do for that person. It would probably alleviate some of their stress, probably make them feel better. They'd burn some calories while doing it. It could be a recuperative, regenerative type of exercise. Now take that same person and instead say, we're going to go to the park and I'm going to have you do 10, all out sprints, up this hill, inappropriate.

It would actually burn them out. So now you're taking a form of cardio which, for some people, for some people, if it's appropriate, boost their metabolism, burn shit tons of body fat, may even build a little muscle, it'll do the opposite. It's a lot like redlining in a car where, you know, like this is definitely, if intensity, if that's the main metrics that we're focused on this whole time, like there's a shelf life to that.

And especially with hit, hit is not one of those styles of training that you want to live in for very long. I mean, there's a very short window to actually even getting gains from doing this type of cardio. And so, you know, what I see common is people just get stuck. Like, this is the only way. This is the only thing that's working for me. And it becomes one of those things where they're not progressing anymore That's because it's programmed poorly. It's programmed poorly part of the programming is it's it's done indefinitely Hit hit training should be done in short blocks It should both because it's a high stress on the body

Especially if you're already weight training look if you're doing weight training and that's the cornerstone of your workout, which it should be, then you can add, hit, type, training to it, but do it in blocks. Otherwise, you run the risk of burning your body out. The other thing is there's either no programming or terrible programming with hit training. So what I mean by no programming

is someone will just do hit on cardio, like on a treadmill or a bike or whatever. Fine, very basic. You'll get some benefits, I get it. Then when people try to actually program hit training in the gym, what they end up doing is a mishmash of random exercises. And the selection of the exercises is just hard shit. It's entirely based on how hard they are.

So it's like, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do, you know, Tabata squats over here, box jumps over here, we're gonna jump some rope, then we're gonna do 15 burpees, then you're gonna throw the medicine ball, and just get sloppy and chaotic. I'm 100%, 100%, there's at least a hundred trainers right now listening who are like,

oh, I just did that work out this morning. I just said right now, you know what I'm saying? We're shaming you right now. Yeah, there is no programming consideration. It's just, let's put together super hard exercises and then just go all out. And you're missing out on all the incredible potential that hit training can do for people

because you're not programming it properly. If you pro, just like a weight training workout, it's no different. When I do a straight workout with weights or I'm programming a straight workout with weights, the exercise order, the exercise selection, how you do them, that all makes a huge different tempo, wraps, rass, all those things, go into programming.

That's what makes a workout so effective. That's why a maps program is typically far more effective than your regular workout. You get off the internet with weights or whatever. Same thing with Hit. It needs to be programmed properly. You need to be able to put the right exercises together in the right order for the right length and period of time, and that'll really maximize the type of results you get. And most hit workouts are just not like that.

Well, an example, I mean, if you're gonna program something like a deadlift, you're gonna be taxed, you know, and then trying to throw in something super hard that's gonna compromise you like a overhead press right after a deadlift, it would be a terrible idea. Your risk of injury goes up. And so just things like that, you just have to consider that, you know, one exercise before is gonna affect the other and you have to stack them, you know, in line accordingly to what makes other, and you have to stack them in line accordingly to what makes sense. So you can get through that with good form and composure

in order to make it effective. Now, how often would you guys actually program hit for clients and or for yourself? So here's when I would program it, is the person, do they you know decent movement patterns and what other movement patterns good for because that's what I'm going to consider with the hit workout so if this person's a not a great barbell squatter probably not going to put barbell squats in their hit workout in other words so I'm going to

consider all those things are they otherwise well rested well fed are they fit healthy and is this person ready to go after it for three to four weeks? And that's the person I would program this type of program for. Somebody who's like, doing everything right, everything looks good, okay, let's see how much body fat we can burn in a four week period. Because at the end of the day, if it's appropriate for someone

and if it's done properly, there is no workout that burns body fat faster than hit. There just isn't. If you do it right, and it's, again, if it's the right person and it's done properly, you're going to burn more body fat in a four, you know, four week or three week or six week period of time, that you will doing almost anything else. And of course, diet has to be in line. When the way I program it for myself is similar. If I'm feeling strong and healthy and I want to improve my athletic performance,

it's usually athletic performance for me. So usually I'm thinking, okay, I wanna improve my stamina. That's when I'll start to program hit style workouts into my routine. I usually don't think of them for me at least in terms of fat loss. For me, that's all diet.

I manipulate diet 100% for that. But for me, it's performance. Like, okay, I want more stamina, I want more endurance. I'm gonna do two hit workouts a week. And they typically consist of, you know, anywhere between two to four exercises programmed together with a little rest in between, but done in a way that, you know,

again, in that hit style of workout. What about you, Justin? How do I use them? Yeah, I'm similar to that in terms of like building up my gas tank, but I like them for the fun of it. Like I honestly will program hit style workouts so I can move and express, you know, like intensified movements.

I just like, I like going through that type of conditioning. I'm not real big fan of aimlessly just living on a treadmill and doing long bouts of cardio. I'm not a real big fan of doing long bouts of cardio to begin with. And I'd rather just lift weights or if I am going to do cardio, it's going to be more hit style. So I throw it in going to be more hit style.

So, I throw it in there to build up my endurance and durability, but also just to move athletically and powerfully. So I like to use, you know, throw them in there when I feel like I haven't been explosively moving and, you know, getting my heart pounding. Yeah. For athletes, of course, you're going gonna love it, because if you're an athlete and you wanna build that type of athletic performance, I mean, this is the form of cardio

that you would probably rely on the most. Yeah, it very much resembles how I used to train in practice when I was playing. That's kind of similar to how I use it personally. I like to just intermittently, I do it like when I have time constraints, which is not often normally I have plenty of time to work out in the day,

but every once in a while there's a day where I've got to get off to some appointment and I have a small window to work out. And because I don't do it on a regular basis nor do I recommend that people do it on a very regular basis, I think it's amazing to intermittently throw it into a normal routine.

So I can be in the middle of a map, and a ball of type of a program, or in the middle of any program for that matter. And it's like, oh wow, this Wednesday, I forgot I have a haircut at three o'clock. My workouts normally at two thirty. It's like, oh shit, I don't have very much time. Oh, I'm gonna do a hit session today.

That'll be great, because I haven't done it forever. My body will respond nicely to it. It's good, you know what I'm saying? So that's how I use it for myself I've also and I've heard you mentioned like as you're going through like building yourself up to get on stage Like you've used that as a tool like towards the end Because you don't do much cardio to begin with is that so I'm actually the same process that I go for myself Is how I introduce to like a client like right now.

So I have a client who's got into its sales point, I think, is very important. So the first prerequisites is you have to be able to move well. You have to be able to move well, understand, exercise well. And then I also want you in a very healthy place metabolism-wise, first before I do something like this. And we are, she's one week away from me introducing hit. So I already know that this is coming. Now, I've been coaching her for the last two months. and this is not a competitor. This is just a normal person

But what I'm working on with her is building her metabolism up So she her ultimate goal was to lose like 10 15 pounds of body fat When she when she hired me she hit was at 1500 calories We are now it's I think we're like weeks, six or seven weeks in right now, and we're between 21 and 2300 calories a day. So she's, I've moved her all the way up to, with no cardio. So zero cardio. And that was one of the first things that I, right away, we, I monitored her through steps. We started off at about 10,000 steps a day, then we moved up to 12,000 steps, then 13,000. We're up at 15,000 steps. So we're at 15,000 steps, roughly 2300 calories,

zero cardio whatsoever. And this is a car, this is a calorie increase for her is 2300 calories. And the goal has been to kind of just maintain her weight. And that's exactly what we've done is we're about seven weeks in. We've maintained our weight completely. And so now I'm going to run around a mini cut for two weeks. And in the mini cut, we'll be, I'll do a small calorie restriction and I'll introduce hit. And this will start in one week. So in one week, I'll take her from a 2300 calorie goal to about a 1900 to 2000 calorie goal with three days a week of 12 minutes a hit post workout. So that's what I'll prescribe to her. And it'll be, we'll run at that for two weeks on this mini-cut, and then when we go, then we'll go back to a surplus.

And so every time I do these like little mini-cuts with a client, hit is one of my favorite ways to get an extra calorie burn to show her some more movement like that. I know that I'm not gonna sacrifice a lot of muscle. Plus, I'm also considering her metabolism. I don't need her on long bouts of cardio yet. And for time reasons, it's only 12 minutes.

So that's the probably the best thing about it is that you can do in a 10, 15 minute window, you can get an effective workout, one that will actually produce results. There's very little forms of exercise that'll do that in that period of time. Like you can't stretch for that long and get lots of results. You can't lift weights necessarily for that. But if you do a hit training with some weights, a barbell, some dumbbells, you are gonna get

an effective fat burning effect. And even here's the other aspect of it. In some cases, a little bit of a muscle building effect. You're definitely not gonna get the muscle loss effect that you get from excessive bouts of the steady state form of cardio, which is why I think it's becoming one of the more popular forms of working out. Again, it's that window.

I think if you time it all right, like it is, it has that effect where it'll preserve the muscles that you've built, it seems. In terms of being able to now shed body fat and have that be a focus, that's how I like to throw it in there intermittently. Again, summer's coming around, so it's a perfect time for me to start doing it again. Remember, you got to understand this. Now, why is it that hit training if we're gonna compare that to traditional cardio?

Why is it that you lose less muscle on that? We kind of made this point earlier, but I wanna hammer it home. In order to do a proper hit workout, you are explosive. You are using strength, or at least using much more strength than you would doing traditional cardio, which requires much more endurance. So you're sending a signal to the body that says,

Hey, I need stamina and strength versus the other forms of cardio, which we just need stamina. And so the body preserves muscle. And so for the metabolism, if it's appropriate for you, hit type workouts are better. They're better for your metabolism. Again, it has to be appropriate for you. That's a very, very important point that I'm making But if it is appropriate for you and it's programmed properly

You're gonna burn more body fat and you're gonna lose less muscle and some people I this happens to me When I do hit training with with barbells and dumbbells sometimes I build a little bit of muscle trips me out Yeah, I think it's just a new stimulus. It's a little bit of a different type of training and And again, I program it's just a new stimulus. It's a little bit of a different type of training. And again, I program it very, very well. So I'm not just doing an endless circuit of 15 different, you know, in saying exercises like a lot of people are doing. I'm doing mine are three or four movements,

and I'm doing, you know, I'm doing one intensely, then I'm like 10, 15 seconds, and then I move to the next one. So that I'm kind of maximizing, you know, those types of effects. The other thing about hit training that is really awesome for a lot of people, is it typically doesn't require a lot of equipment,

that it doesn't mean that you can't do it with a lot of equipment, because you can do it with a lot of equipment as well, but you don't need a lot of equipment. Oftentimes, I would have my clients to hit workouts with three pairs of dumbbells, or a barbell and body weight. And that's it.

We didn't need to have, you know, we would take up a small corner of the gym in fact and be able to do this full workout and it would only take 15 minutes. I mean, for convenience sake, it has to be one of the most convenient type of workouts. Oh, yeah, I love that aspect of it. And you could also do it outside.

And that's one of those things. I'll take dumbbells with a client and we'll just do that entire workout outside. And you don't occupy up a whole lot of space. So, yeah, there's lots of benefits to that in terms of convenience and time. And again, like I, there's few tools that you can focus on whether it's kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells,

but you don't need a whole lot, that you just need a plan, a real good solid program to go around. Well, step one, if I were to, when we program a hit program for a client, the very, very first thing that we consider is, is it appropriate for this person? So we said this earlier in this podcast,

but I'll emphasize it. You have to have decent movement. So you can't be a total out of shape beginner. Hit is intense, okay? So if you've been working out for a little while, you get a decent amount of fitness, you know, that's number one. You should be in good standing with your health.

So you're not already pushing yourself on the brink of overdoing it. If you already feel like you can barely handle your workout load now, probably not a good idea to throw hit on top of it. If you're feeling great and you're like, yeah, I feel like I can handle more intensity and feel great and I'm getting good sleep

in my diet's decent, then hit maybe appropriate for you. You're also, I talked about having good movement patterns. Here's something that really frustrates me with most hit workouts that I see that are out there, is they place zero emphasis on mobility. Yeah, there's none. I haven't seen any program highlight that. Besides Maps hit, I mean, time found any.

Right, talk about like one of the most compromising styles workouts where it's going to put the most demand on your joints and yet we don't have you know a way to recuperate from that and then also like go through like active rest like in between that and really like express the type of movements you need constantly in your joints and reinforce that like it to me, that's crazy. Now, you have to consider all of the... When you look at a workout, any workout, look at what it's stressing the most

and then a very smart thing to do would be to address that as part of your workout programming. And what hit-style training tends to stress the most are movement patterns. It tends to stress the most are movement patterns. It tends to stress mobility the most because of the intensity, because of the intense nature. Because I'm pushing myself so hard, my form can break down a little bit

and I can cause problems in my joints so it only makes sense to make mobility a part of my programming. I mean, look, it's no different than if I were driving my car through the desert, I would consider the fact that my car is gonna be filtering a lot of sand out of the air. And so I'm gonna bring a bunch of air filters with me,

knowing that I'm not to change them out. So if you're doing hit training, knowing that you're gonna stress your mobility, knowing that your movement patterns are gonna be challenged quite a bit, you need to prescribe challenged quite a bit, you need to prescribe or at least incorporate, should say, a mobility practice in your workout. Otherwise, you're kind of asking for trouble. So that would be the other thing. Like programming a hit workout

needs to have some type of a mobility component that helps solidify good movement. Now, you guys will, if you read up on hit, you'll see several different time protocols. How do you guys like to coach it when you coach it? Because I tend to coach differently than what you'll Google and find when it comes to the, how long do I sprint as hard as I can, or how long do I go after this, and then how long do I rest for hard as I can or how long do I go after this and then how long do I rest for what do you guys typically do?

Well, I mean, the biggest thing for me is to really pay attention to composure and where the form starts to break down in diminishing. I feel like, I mean, you could get anything off the internet and they're going to give you a time sequence that sounds great and it's something that, you know, maybe the first round you did it, like you were able to like really get through it with good form and but then it started to break down, but you're still trying to push yourself, right? Because there's that mentality, I think a lot of people going into these workouts, they want to be able to maintain this high level, this competitiveness of getting through it.

And the entire goal is to get through the workout whereas like I always try to caution my clients to really pay attention to, you know, the form of mechanics. And when it starts to break down, that's where we stop and we get our appropriate rest and move on. Now that's the only way to individualize hit training.

It's that right there because what ends up happening is people will say, oh, I'm supposed to sprint for, you know, as hard as I can with this exercise for 20 seconds. And then I'm supposed to go easy for 30 seconds and then repeat. Well, 20 seconds of all-out exertion, maybe too much, or maybe the weight you're using is too much for that length of time. But because it's a hard time, you're going to keep going, forms are going to go bad, you're going to strengthen poor recruitment patterns because now you're moving terribly. And the workout has lost its effectiveness. Or, because I do the same thing, I'll tell my client, go hard and fast, but until your form starts to break down, when your form starts to break down, now you take a small break and then wait till your

composure comes back where you think you can apply that intensity again. And then what ends up happening, this is what I love about that, is as the person progresses through the hit workout from week to week and they become more fit, they naturally increase their time in the intensity because they can go a little longer or a little harder or they rest a little bit less. And it's based off of their own fitness level and that makes it much more individualized and anything that's individualized is more effective

than generalized, that's a rule and fitness. Well, I find that, and know, and again, too, I think it's appropriate to, as a coach or a trainer who is, and when this is why we incorporate this in the MapsHit program was, there should be levels to this as far as the duration that you're talking about right now. Like, I can do hit training with, you know, several different levels of fitness.

It's not only for super advanced people. If you have good movement patterns and you're relatively good shape, getting on and doing hit training on the elliptical is pretty damn safe. A great tool for most people. But let's say in a piece of equipment like that, and I'm not doing it circuit style with weights, because if I'm doing it with, that's obviously a little bit more advanced, because that person has to be, first of all, very mechanically sound in the first place, and they also have to have really good body awareness to know that as soon as their body starts to

break down and form, and they're feeling it in secondary muscles trying to take over to know, okay, it's time to shut it off. But if you're on a piece of cardio equipment, I can say, okay, I want you to go as hard as you can on the saliptical for 20 seconds and try and get your heart rate up as high as you can, and then I want you to rest. Now, when you rest, that's to me where the greatest variance is.

Cause some people in really good cardiovascular shape will be ready to go again in 45 seconds to a minute. Some of my clients I've seen take two and a half, three minutes for that heart rate to normalize again and then be fine. And there's no, if I just, if I keep sending them back on that circuit, that client who's really de-conditioned

on and we're training hit and I go, oh, the protocol says, 20 seconds hard, rest for one minute, go again, and their heart's still pounding towards the max and they go out again. Now I'm just high intensity cardio. I'm no longer getting those benefits. There's no interval.

A lot of the benefits people need to understand of hit cardio is the dropping of the heart rate. That's it, that's what makes it kind of like resistance training more than other forms of cardio. heart rate. That's it. That's what makes that's what makes it kind of like resistance training more than other forms of cardio. It's that you're taking those small breaks to allow yourself to build up enough ATP or enough energy stores to go hard again so that you build the strength. This is why I think 100% across the board, again, if it's appropriate, that high intensity interval training with weights is superior than high intensity interval training

with cardio. If it's appropriate for the person, doing it with weights is superior than doing it with cardio. First off, I get the dual benefit, I get the calorie benefit, burning benefit, like I would with cardio, but now I get the dual benefit of strengthening particular areas of the body.

Now I can make my hit work my muscles more directly than just being on a bike or because 90% of cardio equipment out there is leg intensive. I'm doing lots of leg hit type training. When I'm using barbells and dumbbells for hit training, now I can, not only do I work my legs if I want, but I can work more hamstrings, I can work more quads, I can work more hips, or I can work my upper body. I can do hit and incorporate chest exercises

and shoulder exercises and, you know, back exercises and arm exercises. So hit with weights, the problem with weights with high intensity interval training is it requires much more more skill? Much more programming and more skill. When I see people do high-intensity interval training with weights, I almost never see well-programmed workouts. But if it's programmed well, there's just more skill involved with programming. If it's programmed well, hit

with weights is just, it's the best form of... I also think part of that is because so many people abuse the cardio side of it too. I mean when I see hit cardio being done right now when I look around the gym, I don't see people allowing the heart rate to come all the down. I see them going as hard as they can, you know, slowing down just a little bit to let their heart rate kind of catch their breath and they get right after it again and they're keeping their heart rate at like 150 plus the entire time and they're not letting it go.

I don't even see people slowing down. No, I mean, that's not very common for me to even see them trying regain composure. It's just, okay, I do this. Now I got to jump. Now I got to push up. Now I got to dip. They try and like string it all together based off of like, you know, what they could just do in place, you know, with their body weight. And it's just cardio.

It's just really high intense car. The only time high intense cardio. Now, that's just it. I just with that point, I'm trying to make I've had to repeat the client so many times. So often. You have the heart rate coming down is the most important part to hit. Otherwise, you're just doing high-intensity training and all those great studies that everybody talks about and all the great benefits. You're not getting those

benefits. You're just doing high-intensity cardio so it's so important. That's right. Now, I mean, and this is all the stuff that we, you know, I remember when we wrote maps hit, we had to consider all this stuff. And that's why we incorporated the way that the workouts are designed with the barbells and dumbbells with the small breaks in between and the way that we incorporated the mobility which I'm telling you right now in my experience training people and watching people do hit training there's two things that prevent people from getting good results from hit one is they burn themselves out it just was too much intensity it's not appropriate for them and the other one is they hurt themselves out. It just was too much intensity, so that's not appropriate for them. And the other one is they hurt themselves.

I can't tell you how many times I've had people come up to me and they asked them about their injury, why did you stop working out for the last couple of weeks? Oh, I was doing a hit workout and I pulled a hamstring or I hurt my shoulder. It's like, oh, so when we wrote our maps hit, a hundred like a lot of the effort went into the mobility in between the hit workouts to prevent that from happening.

Well, we have two flow days that we incorporate. That's right. The thing about the flow is interesting because we did something a little unique to with these mobility sessions to make them a little more fun and engaging. So we actually strung together lots of moves that were really restorative. You'll find some of them in yoga, but very much of these flow patterns that take you into just natural positions

that really help to restore that movement and that integrity of each joint. So it was very well thought out and it actually is its own workout in a sense. It is. So here's some takeaways. If you're listening and you're like, OK, I want to do hit training properly.

First off, consider the exercises that you're putting together. I would say three to five exercises at the most. Beginners, maybe three intermediate four advanced five. It's kind of how we even programmed ours. Make sure you take a day off and between your hit workouts. And in those days off, do some mobility work. We call ours flow sessions, but if you're doing this on your own, go to the gym and just

focus on stretching and movement and dynamic stretches just to maintain your mobility because hurting yourself, nothing will stop you progressing faster than hurting yourself. And then make sure that it's appropriate for you. Are you an overstressed person who's already pushing everything to the edge? If that's you, don't do it. Don't do it. If you're feeling great and you're healthy, then it may be appropriate for you. And then finally, the length of time that you train in the cycle, I mean, how long would

you guys, how long would we route Maps Hip to be what? Four weeks long? Yeah, I mean, that's probably about as long. I'd say four weeks, Max Fat Burn, Max Calorie Burn, and then get out of it. Let's get out of it and go back to our more traditional training so that we don't get our bodies to adapt too much in that.

Well, the cool part about Maps Hip has become one of our top sellers. I mean, we haven't even had it around as long as some of the other older programs. And it surpassed how many other programs. I mean, people just tend to gravitate towards this training. But the coolest part about the program has been getting the feedback on what people absolutely love the flow sessions. I mean, we incorporated animal flow.

That's where I think we haven't done anything like that. And you're going from one mobility position to another mobility, it's a flowing. It's a little bit of a flow. Yeah. And it's a little bit of a workout in and of itself, which Oh, it's actually challenging. There's levels of it actually.

Yeah, if you take it on as a challenge of trying to move really well, that I think that's why people liked it so much. It wasn't just boring mobility or stretching sessions for 30 minutes to an hour. It's kind of like this rhythm that you're trying to find. And that's, I think if you take it on like that as a challenge, like looking at the models in the videos that are doing it, and can I get to the point where I'm flowing as well as they are better?

So much benefit to that. Actually, that's such a great point. There's a huge misconception out there about mobility that it's this relaxed, passive, boring, stretch, and session. No, no, no. Real mobility is work. You have to connect to what you're doing. You have to activate your central nervous system. It's going to make you sweat and it's going to make you, you're going to feel like you have, you've got a bit of a workout. That's what gives you the mobility. It's not sitting on the floor, stretching your hamstrings,

scrolling through Instagram. That's not as passive about it. No, no, no. Real mobility is a little bit of work, but definitely incorporate that in your routine. And then here's the other thing. If you want to really maximize your fat burn, do not negate the other effects of your of calorie burn throughout the day in particular.

Your neat, all of the activity that you do throughout the day, that's not your workout. You know, neat stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Pay attention to that because that burns more calories than almost anything else that you do. So that's like how many steps you take, how much you move throughout the day, when you're working or you know, when you're whatever, that's not a workout. That burns a lot of calories. In fact, in our program, maps it,

we prescribe neat on the weekends. So it's like, hey, here's your weekends. You're not doing your hit workouts, you're not doing your flow sessions, but pay attention to how much that's going to. Yeah. I highly suggest you at least get like a pedometer or if you have one of those wearables, like this is an appropriate place to use that just to give you some kind of feedback. As to how active you were throughout the day.

Oh, great time for right now. It's summertime. So go for hike. Go for a nice long walk and stroll outside. I mean, that's how this is the first program that we actually started to integrate the neat recommendations in there. So everything from this, the first time we did flow sessions, the first time we started recommending neat, and then you're doing what, hit three times a week is what we have scheduled in there, really cool. And then each one we progress, right?

So it starts barbell complexes first, then goes to dumbbell, then goes to body weight. That's right. And you can go in different levels. You're starting out as a beginner. You may adapt to that and even progress forward into intermediate and then intermediate to advance. So there's levels to this as well.

Now, and the way that you would do this on your own is a hit workout, a real good hit workout. Many times may replace a traditional resistance training workout if you're doing a lot of weight training. Now, if you're not doing a lot of weight training, you can throw it on top. But let's say you're lifting weights six days a week, very intensely. I would do, you could substitute one of the workouts for a hit workout. I wouldn't necessarily throw it on top. Now, if you're working out two or three days a week in the gym with weights, then you can definitely add a throw it on top. Now, if you're working out two or three days a week in the gym with weights, then you can definitely add a couple of hit workouts.

Again, if you're healthy and it's appropriate for you, and you'll just get the amplified fat burning effect. But here's a deal, and I've done this often times, and I often don't share this because I'm very careful with my words, and I know how some people can overdo things, okay? But if it is appropriate for you, you are healthy, you're getting good sleep, you're relatively fit, and you're eating a good diet.

So you're in your, cause your goal is trying to get lean. So you're eating at a deficit four weeks of proper hit training will burn more fat than anything you've ever seen. It's that effective. The, the, I always caution myself, even when I say that because again, if it's not appropriate for you, then it won't do that for you. It'll do the opposite. It may you may end up getting hurt or burning yourself out. But if it's appropriate for you and you want to burn fat in a hurry,

hit, uh, done with a good diet, there's nothing I've seen at least with clients or myself that burns body fat any faster. Right. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, or myself that burns body fat any faster. Alright. Maths Performance and Maths Esthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin

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