Should You Do HIIT If You Want To Build Muscle Or Lose Fat?

By Howe Russ


Most gym users who want to know how to build muscle can't seem to get any further forward due to the amount of conflicting information out there. One such area of confusion is HIIT.

Many people who perform this type of exercise are going for weight loss, however there is also a major use here for those looking to improve size and strength.

While there are certainly multiple benefits to be had from a good cardiovascular exercise plan, most people don't find cardio as interesting as weight training. This is particularly true with men, who seem far more interested in resistance workouts than hitting the treadmill or elliptical trainer.

Naturally, this behavior stems from a largely untrue stereotype that cardio is for women and weights are for men. This age old belief is something which has held countless gym members back for years and it's built upon lies.

However, if your primary goal is hypertrophy you are the exact type of person who should be performing regular cardiovascular workouts and one of the best forms of this is high intensity interval training. Not only is it great for fat loss, it'll also help you to build more lean tissue.

There are several key differences between high intensity cardio sessions and steady state workouts. If you've ever used an exercise bike for an hour at a steady pace you've probably felt a little bit bored at certain stages. That's one of the main drawbacks to this style of training and something which high intensity sessions will eliminate.

High intensity interval training is based around constantly switching between moderate and high intensities, causing your body to tap into both it's aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. There are striking similarities between an interval training session and a resistance workout.

The two primary energy sources we use during exercise are called aerobic and anaerobic. During regular cardio workouts we use our aerobic system. However, during both resistance training and high intensity intervals we use the anaerobic system instead.

Due to the fact that our body uses the same energy system during interval training as we do for resistance workouts, we actually burn calories in the same way. You may have already heard that a resistance workout causes your body to continue burning calories at an increased rate for hours after you leave the gym. This also happens with interval training, whereas regular cardio doesn't have these 'afterburn' benefits.

As you can see, learning how to build muscle isn't necessarily all about hitting the weights. HIIT is a great way to increase lean tissue, with the added benefit of stripping away unwanted body fat at an increased rate.




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