THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO HIIT

SIMONE DOULAVERAS

What is HIIT and why do we need it?

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a workout that has bursts of cardio to keep your body working at its peak throughout.

Every HIIT workout will have a specially designed work/rest ratio to get your body working as efficiently as possible.

What are the benefits of HIIT?

• You burn the maximum amount of calories in a short period of time
• Your metabolic rate will be higher hours after exercise (that’s right, you keep burning those calories after class!)
• A 15-minute workout will improve your heart health, increase fat loss and tone your whole body!
  …That’s enough reasons for us!

Grab a drink and HIIT the barre

So, where does barre come into this? Barre gives you the high intensity, without the high impact. High impact isn’t bad, but the low impact, high intensity combination is safer for most bodies and reduces the chance of injury during training.

Ogres have layers, workouts have layers. We serve up our training in layers! 

This means if you do the modified version of each drill you will still get a workout. You just need to maintain your form to get the real benefit, HIIT included. So, slow down if you need to and make sure you maintain proper alignment and activation.

Too much of a good thing?

You can do too much HIIT training. You have to keep your workout routine spicy! That means mixing up your workout regime to stop your body from bulking, plateauing and reduces the risk of injury.

HIIT training can also cause an increase in cortisol, which is the hormone that’s released when our body is under stress. However, this is usually only an issue with aerobic HIIT (long distance running, for example), so it’s pretty different from Pilates HIIT. But to keep safe, break up your HIIT training and spread them throughout the week.

The Loft recommends…
3 x high intensity sessions per week
3 x moderate intensity sessions per week
1 x low intensity/recovery session per week

If you are looking to lose weight, work out twice per day with a short blast of high intensity training for between 10 and 20 minutes per week. Then, add the recommended workouts.