Among those in the know, there’s no doubt that to burn the maximum amount of fat in the shortest amount of time, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is your best bet for cardio. HIIT has been shown in numerous studies to elevate ones metabolism for up to 24 hours.
That means that not only do you burn calories while you’re doing HIIT, but you’re also burning extra calories for the next 24 hours. That’s why interval training is so efficient and burns so much fat compared to regular or steady state cardio, which pretty much just burns calories while you’re doing it.
When doing High Intensity Interval Training, you work as hard as you can for a brief period of time followed by a cool down period in which you’re working less intensely.
They key to performing interval training properly is to get your heart rate up as high as possible during the “all out” or “on” portion of the interval. Therefore this period has to be no longer than 60 seconds.
The cool down portion should be anywhere from two to three times as long as the all out portion. This allows your heart rate to come down a bit and enables you to perform another all out segment of the interval.
You can do intervals that last anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds, but I generally recommend doing 30 seconds all out, then cooling down at a slower pace for 60 seconds.
I hope it’s crystal clear that in order to burn the most fat in the shortest amount of time, you should implement High Intensity Interval Training into your exercise routine.
Yours in health,
Dr Clay
Hi Dr. Clay,
I really wanted some help. I am currently doing 3 or 4 hiit sessions per week and no steady state cardio. My question is that would this compromise my muscle gains ?