Shorter more frequent cardio better

[ItsHectic]

Shorter more frequent cardio better for fat loss

It has been shown in studies that doing 3 10min high intensity cardio sessions with a 20minute break inbetween burnt more fat than doing 1 30minute session.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense, I wonder if this principle is what HIIT is based on. You could very easily say this is HIIT but the usual HIIT routine is just 1 cardio session.



So I wonder if this works better than just one session of HIIT.

Cardio break-up | Muscle & Fitness | Find Articles at BNET

So they had male and female subjects perform either a 30-minute treadmill run at 80% of their max heart rate or three 10-minute bouts of running at the same intensity, separated by 20-minute rest periods. They discovered no difference between the total calories burned or the amount of fat burned, but the intermittent bouts felt much easier than the continuous run. What's more, they found that the short bouts significantly lowered the amount of fat that showed up in the subjects' blood after eating the high-fat meal. This means that short, multiple bouts of cardio may help you store less dietary fat

Effect of split exercise sessions on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

VO2 returned to baseline within 30 minutes for all three exercise trials. Magnitude of EPOC was also similar after all runs. However, the combined magnitude (expressed in kcals) of the two 25 minute runs was significantly greater than the continuous 50 minute run (13.88 vs 6.39). Heart rate remained elevated above baseline, and respiratory exchange ratio was lower than baseline 30 minutes after exercise. It is concluded that split exercise sessions can significantly increase post-exercise caloric expenditure. However, the overall magnitude of the increase is small.

Conflicting information about amount of calories burnt but regardless it seems, ideally you would seperate cardio sessions by 30min breaks if you could.

 

[jumpshot903]

Thats interesting, I wouldnt doubt the fact that splitting it up is better because i too believe it. But the thing is finding time i mean i usually only have about 25 minutes or so to do a HIIT session and it would be hard to find 90 minutes to do one. I think it wouldnt be something you could do everyday unless have a lot of time but occasionally.

As far as calories burnt etc, you would be burning calories in those 20 minute breaks so and for sometime after your last set so overall its probally a wider window of burning calories. So therefore more benifical, If you were to do one HIIT session of 10 minutes lets say youd only burn calories for a certain period of time (dont know roughly how long) But when your doing 3 intervals you burn in throughout all the cardio and breaks and even after your last set for however long you would with just one session.

So i think its deffinately much more benifical.

 

[CopyCat]

High intensity and short duration has been cased as effectively boosting your metabolism much better than longer steady cardio. 'Cause if we remember it's not really about how many cals you burn during the workout as it is how hot you get and keep your metabolism running throughout the day. So, the article appears to very much follow the HIIT ideology.

 

[jim623]

High intensity and short duration has been cased as effectively boosting your metabolism much better than longer steady cardio. 'Cause if we remember it's not really about how many cals you burn during the workout as it is how hot you get and keep your metabolism running throughout the day. So, the article appears to very much follow the HIIT ideology.

Exactly, fat is not burn while doing cardio, it's burned while sitting on your butt watching TV in a resting state.

Also, it keeps the body guessing, prevents efficiency.

 

[Flaw]

Your getting a lot of rest in between so your more likely to have quality 10 minute sessions vs getting worn out in the middle of your intense 30 minute session. It makes sense to me. The big problem though is time. What do you do in between? You can do some weight training but then by the time your finished with everything your in the gym for 2 hours. You can cut down the rest to 10 minutes? But if your HITT session was really intense 10 minutes will feel like nothing and then your ready to go again so 20 minutes does seem better for full recovery I just don't see how it's practical for the average person.

 

[ItsHectic]

Yea its not practical for some people but it doesn't have to be a short rest, for example, you can do 10mins after work, 10mins after dinner, and maybe 10mins in the morning.
This would be something like jump rope, jogging on the street or cycling etc. I dont think you could apply this principle if your only going to be doing cardio in the gym.

I don't think its the quality I think its the prolonging of the thermogenic effect.

I think doing weights in between just turns it into one big cardio session and defeats the principle.