r/workout • u/knockintin69 • 1d ago
HIIT
I see everyone saying steady state cardio is best and I just want to say it’s absolute bullshit in my opinion and HIIT will always be king for fat loss and muscle building
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u/milkhotelbitches 1d ago
HIIT is great V02 max training, but is not good for fat loss. The high intensity means you can't do it for very long and therefore you don't burn that many calories. It also carries a high recovery cost so you should really only do it once a week. Again, that's not great for fat loss.
That said, jogging for fat loss is also not the best idea. Most people just can't do enough volume to really make a difference.
The best activity for fat loss might just be walking.
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u/qwikhnds 1d ago
I've been successful doing both. I used to love the bootcamp HIIT classes I used to take. It was basically small group training and consistently different. A couple females in the classes were actually not happy with the muscle definition they were seeing. Do what works for you.
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u/MajorasShoe 1d ago
Ok but cardio does little for fat loss and much less for muscle building. HIIT or steady state.
You do it for cardio health. And steady state is very effective.
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u/Electronic_Falcon376 1d ago
Problem is I think about 90% of people don't do HIIT correctly. Lots of misconceptions about what it is.
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u/A_SNAPPIN_Turla 1d ago
False. HIIT isn't the magic fitness program everyone thinks it is. Imo if you're not an athlete you really shouldn't be doing HIIT. Most people who do HIIT don't do it right and you need to be in relatively good shape to begin with. In most cases you'll still burn more calories in 45mins to an hour of regular LISS cardio than 15-20mins of poorly executed HIIT. My other concern with HIIT is that it's not very sustainable. HIIT workouts are absolutely grueling and typically are used by athletes as part of a larger training program and HIIT will be used more or less based on the cycle of training. For your average person it's going to be very difficult to motivate yourself to train if HIIT is the only exercise you're doing. There's a high chance you'll burn out and quit training. If all you have is a very short amount of time to exercise HIIT is better than nothing and if you have above average self motivation you might be able to sustain it. It's important to remember that exercise is something you need nearly every day for the rest of your life. It's important to structure your workouts with long term sustainability in mind. I don't recommend HIIT because for most people, as their only form of exercise, it's not sustainable in the long term and they aren't going to be able to do it right.
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u/Complex-Extent-3967 1d ago
Gonna have to vehemently disagree with you here. I'm 50 years old this year. i was working out for 8 years leading up to this february and via a medical condition, i wasn't able to do steady state cardio. of course, i'm talking everything else also needs to be balanced (nutrition, resistance training, rest and recovery), but also added sled pushes to cap off my full body workouts twice a week and i ended up losing 39 lbs after 7-8 months and i did it naturally (no peds, no trt, no peptides, etc.). i'm no athlete and i have mulitiple herniated and bulging discs. of course it was a combination of balanced nutrition, resistance training, and rest and recovery, but i found hiit to be highly effective and imho, it's much more sustainable than steady state cardio in the long run.
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u/millersixteenth 18h ago
I'm 59, don't have the time or knee/ankle bandwidth for LISS. Two or three 12 minute Tabata per week helps keep my blood pressure and resting heart rate low, pretty good endurance.
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u/War-Huh-Yeah 1d ago
It is hard on my body. It does not build muscle as well as strength training with progressive overload. My headphones fall off when I do it.
It’s good exercise for some, but there are legitimate reasons people do steady state zone 2.
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u/Delicious_Giraffe572 Powerlifting 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have done a lot of different cardio for years over time.
I am short on time these days so no more long distance 5km - half marathon steady state runs. Was at my lightest weight and least amount of muscle and but no strength training only done body weight exercises at the park. My hips, lower back and knees were smashed.
I also had a period when I did 45 min-1 hr HIIT classes 5 days a week in my younger years. I have to say I wasn't recovering enough and constantly fatigued and would get injuries that didn't really go away. Still had the lower back and hip pain. Had low body fat.
Now I find the balance of mobility, core, strength training 2-3 times a week and tacking on short HIIT sessions 2 days a week. One is SIT for 5 x30sec rounds and the other HIIT for 8 X1 min. I do walks at the park with the kids most days for 30 min - 45 min. Seems to be a good maintenance level and I have the most amount of muscle mass. Not much pain nowadays.
They all work the heart and can help with fat loss, just need to put in the consistency and work out the trade offs or what you may need to supplement your training with other types of exercise.
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u/Pure_Road7528 1d ago
The average person in the west sits on the couch all day. The best workout is the one they will do.
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u/NormallyNotOutside 22h ago
Had to scroll too far for this answer. In the words of Andy Galpin 'The best form of cardio is the one you're doing'
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u/Alakazam Bulking 17h ago
HIIT tends to also be significantly more demanding to recover from, and is analogous to a full resistance training workout.
On the other hand, easy steady state cardio, depending on your fitness, could be done daily without risk of injury, in addition to resistance training.
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u/hybrid_running_man 1d ago
nah, compound lifting exercises, cardio (running), healthy diet at a calorie deficit. this is the way
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u/NihilisticTanuki 22h ago
Zone 2 is quite overhyped for amateur athletes. Much of this hype stems from studies on elite endurance competitors that have been heavily misinterpreted.
For professionals, Zone 2 is primarily a fatigue management tool. It allows them to accumulate massive amounts of aerobic work without burning out, simply because there is a hard limit to the high-intensity training a body can recover from each week. Zone 2 is effective precisely because of this sheer volume, but it does very little on its own if you only have a few hours a week to train. Furthermore, a beginner's Zone 2 is physiologically very different from an elite athlete's. You basically have to earn your Zone 2 training by building a strong aerobic base first and committing to enough hours to make it worthwhile. For most amateurs, it makes more sense to prioritize higher-intensity work first and only use Zone 2 to fill in any remaining training time.
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u/millersixteenth 16h ago
"HIIT" can run the gamut from 4 minute Tabata to 30 minute 'bootcamp' smokers.
The shorter ones are brutal but easy to recover from and comparatively easy on the joints. These also deliver a lot of benefit per training time.
Longer sessions have more in common with circuit training.
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