I had a chat with my older brother yesterday. He had gone to a company that does fitness assessments here in Finland. He’s pretty damn out of shape at the moment (he has sort of gone through these phases throughout his life) with probably getting on 20kg of excess fat. He has correctly made the choice to get back into condition and then start lifting with me again, and so he can play hockey more consistently again.
The thing that interested me was what the coach there had told him. The coach said that seeing as how his primary focus now is losing that fat, he should start out with steady state cardio (with a small amount of strength training) and only later move into HIIT. The coaches explanation had gone something along the lines of “because you are currently so out of shape, you need to build an aerobic base before HIIT even really starts to work properly”.
Of course, I didn’t hear the coaches explanation first-hand, so I’m not sure how much was lost in translation, but I wanted to ask you guys (or Leah): do you think there is anything to the idea that a very out of shape person should have some prerequisite level of cardiovascular fitness, developed through steady state cardio, before HIIT style training actually starts to “work optimally”?
His coach is correct. I would say the same thing. HIIT is less useful for conditioning without some aerobic development, in general, though it doesn’t really matter for fat loss strictly speaking.
Follow up: thinking of acquiring a used rowing machine for my apartment for LISS cardio on the days when I can’t be arsed to head to the gym (jogging being absolutely satanic to me). Good option for cardio?
Why is this? Is it just that without an aerobic base, you can’t push yourself very hard with HIIT making the overall work done too little? Or is there more to it?
I understand that an aerobic base allows you to generate higher absolute intensity. But if this effect is dependent on absolute intensity, what is that intensity? Otherwise, if it is based on relative intensity, then why wouldn’t someone benefit, regardless of their base level of conditioning?
I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m just trying to get a better understanding of the underlying reason for HIIT benefits.
I suspect that with little to no conditioning base, attempting repeat intervals at very high intensities will result in much more fatigue than may be desirable in the context of a general training program.
Thanks Austin. This, and the recent post by Leah really help explain a lot better. Basically, it’s not the intensity acheivable by an unconditioned trainee, but the significantly higher fatigue load that is the reason for wanting an aerobic base. Do I have that right?
If that’s what you have, sure! I find that particularly for HIIT, the bike is a simpler tool for getting to that all out sprint quickly. Also just don’t lose your balance while sprinting on the elliptical. Haha.
Depends on the person. Rhetorical question- How long does someone need to squat before they can squat 500? Bonus: there’s some normative data on endurance athletes that coaches use to see what the aerobic and anaerobic capacities are, relatively. I don’t find those terribly useful in non endurance folks.
No, as there are very specific conditioning elements to this template, and each week has a longer session and sprints.
It’s nuanced, right? If you are doing just fine with LISS, there is no need to jump to HIIT. If you need to bump up your conditioning to facilitate weightless (after doing LISS and managing your nutrition), you can add in some HIIT. That kind of thing, but there are no rules or tests. And you can start HIIT, be not very good at it, and get better too, so don’t think that just because your first session of 20 sec sprints seems awful, you aren’t “ready” for it. Those sprints are not fun during those 20 sec.
