Are you confused about HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts and if they are right for you? Thomas DeLauer (@ThomasDeLauerOfficial) is a YouTuber with over 3.68 million subscribers who share content about how to improve your life and who lost over 110 pounds by maintaining a healthy diet and walking. In a new viral video, he tackles the popular workout method, revealing who it is best for and the various ways you could be doing it wrong. “High-intensity interval training is a whole different ball game than what most people think that it is. I want to give you a breakdown of A, what high-intensity interval training really is, and B, what kind of cardio you should be doing when you're intermittent fasting, or what you need to know to at least make an informed decision,” he says.
HIIT Isn’t Always the Most Effective Workout for Fat Loss and Metabolic Response
“The first thing I want to talk about before I even get into anything that has to do with fasting is truly give you the breakdown of what high-intensity interval training should truly look like and what you're actually trying to accomplish,” he says in the post. “Most people look at high-intensity interval training as just this way to get a crazy lung burner, just an awesome workout where you feel like you just torched a bunch of calories. That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't always elicit the best metabolic response, and it doesn't always elicit the best body composition response. You don't always get the desired outcome. You may feel like you accomplished something, but that's not because high-intensity interval training is bad. It's because most people are doing it wrong.”
HIIT Cardio Is Similar to Weight Training
“When we're doing high-intensity interval training, we are activating the anaerobic system of the body. So I want you to think of high-intensity interval training cardio the same way that you would think of weight training,” he says. “Weight training operates with the same metabolic business in your body that high-intensity interval training does. It's utilizing carbohydrates as a source of fuel. So what that means is you're in that rep range of maybe six reps all the way up to 15 reps in the weight room. Well, it's the same kind of thing that you're burning when you're doing a high intensity interval training workout,” he says.
Most People Are Doing HIIT the Wrong Way
He offers an example of what most people think HIIT looks like. “Most people will go ahead and do one minute of high-intensity exercise and then one minute off. Then they'll go back, and they'll do one minute on and one minute off. This is great for gamifying a process. I understand that it makes it easy, but that's not how the body works. The body doesn't necessarily know what one minute or two minutes are. The body just knows when it's fully fatigued or not,” he says.
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This Is the Right Way
“The whole idea with high-intensity interval training is you need to 100% be pushing it to the max and then recovering for however long it takes, whether it's 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes, to be able to be fully recovered to give it 100% again. So it varies from person to person on how long the rest periods should be. It is absolutely not uniform,” he continues. “You should be doing your high-intensity training all the way pedal to the metal for like 15, 20 seconds because, quite honestly, that's about how much energy you have stored up in your body to really perform at 90 to a hundred percent. If you're going longer than 20 or 25 seconds, then you're not pushing it at 90 or a hundred percent. Plain and simple, period. You should be going all the way then recovering as much as you possibly need to to be able to afford to push it 100%.”
If You Are Doing It the Other Way, You Aren’t Going to Your Max
“If you're going at one minute on, one minute off, you're probably going something like 50, 60% of your maximum and then just recovering for however long it takes, that doesn't really add up. We need to elicit the metabolic response that we get when we would normally weight train where we're going all the way to failure,” he says.
HIIT Won’t Get You Into a Fasted State Easier
He then goes on to explain how it applies to fasting. “When you are in a fasted state, your body is not utilizing carbohydrates as a source of fuel. When you are fasted, your body is using ketones. It uses fat, and it turns fat into ketones. When you are doing high-intensity interval training, you're utilizing carbs. Now, I hear a lot of people talking about how high-intensity interval training is going to help them get into a fasted state easier, but that is not really the case,” he says.
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It Has More to Do with When You Are Eating
“Once you're already fasting, your body just stores the glycogen and puts it away. It's not like you have to burn through all your glycogen first before you start burning fat. It's really just how long you are going without eating before your body starts using fat. So it's not like you have to drain your tank and then start using fats. It doesn't quite work all the way like that, although it does in some cases. But high-intensity interval training isn't gonna get you to the benefits of fasting any faster. If you like to do high-intensity interval training, it should simply be because it feels good and because you want to get the maximum heart rate benefits,” he says.
If You Are Fasting and Want to Burn Fat, Try Steady State Cardio
“I like HIIT because it feels good. I get a good mental response from it. But if you're fasting and you're just looking to burn some fat, you're probably better off doing a little bit more of a steady-state type of cardio. I'm talking like literally just 15, 20 minutes at like 60 to 70% of your maximum heart rate. That's gonna oxidize fat a lot easier and maximize the utilization of the ketone bodies,” he says.
The Best Time for HIIT Is After a High Carb Meal
“But if you are gonna do HIIT, then you're gonna wanna make sure you do it right. And the thing is, HIIT is really good right after you have some kind of high-carbohydrate meal; that way, your body can actually use those carbs and put them to good use so they don't get stored at all. But it's very important that you're doing the high-intensity interval training properly,” he says. “Now, when it comes down to the time of your cardio later in the day, if you are someone that cannot do cardio in a fasted state, you have to do it after you've eaten well. You're someone who might respond well to doing high-intensity interval training as a form of cardio, but after you ate. So that would make sense only if you are doing your cardio at the end of the day, after you've already broken your fast.”
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Bottom Line? Mix It Up
The bottom line? “If you're doing your cardio in the morning while you are still fasting, you have to make an honest, informed decision with yourself about what you are after. Are you trying to burn more fat or are you trying to get more of a mental benefit? So maybe mix it up a little bit,” says DeLauer. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 31 Fitness Tips Every Beginner Needs to Look Sexy, According to Coaches.
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