HIITing the zig-zag

The_Shed

The_Shed

New member
Morning All,

After sitting on a plateau for what seemed like an eternity I finally shifted off it witha couple of changes to diet and exercise routine. However, that plateau wasn't a good place to be and I don't want to head back there quickly.

So, I've been looking around the net for some stuff that will make my body keep guessing. The two most common things I've stumbled across are HIIT (also a popular topic on here) and zig-zag calorie intake.

I'm only a newbie when it comes to these two things so it would be great to get some advice from anyone out there who are fans/proponents of these two things.

For HIIT I was going to start small and build up. I was aiming for a 1:2 ratio in 2 minute intervals. Something along the lines of 5 min warm up, 5 sets of 40secs high 80secs low, 5 mins cool down. Now after reading some stuff I'm not too sure if this is small or not. Some suggest only doing 4 mins when you first start but when I'm doing my MISS (Medium intensity steady state) (Hey, HIIT and MISS - do you think it will catch on?) I usually spend 1.5hrs and recover fairly quickly. I guess I'll find out and let people now.

Zig-zag calorie intake isn't as well publicised ont eh ent but it involves averaging your calorie intake over a week and then ensuring your calorie intake is different each day. For example, 2000 calories a day would be 14000 a week. Instead of eating 2000 each day you would eat between 1500 and 2500 each day but making sure your weekly calorie intake is still 14000. I'm a bit more dubious about this technique but I'm willing to give it a go and see what happens. I'm just not sure if alternating days will fool the body or whether it would be better to have high/low coaloric weeks instead. I guess it depends how quickly your body adapts.

Anyway, I'll be posting on my blog for those who want to keep track and I'll be popping in here every now and then to keep you updated.

Wish me luck! (Or is luck for losers as they say in Little Miss Sunshine!)
 
If your "high" intensity intervals are 40 seconds, then they really aren't that high at all.

They should be absolute all out maximum effort, and be more like 15 seconds. Try 15 seconds high and 40 seconds active rest as a beginner for 6-7 minutes.

Increase your total time, and decrease your active rest intervals as you progress. :)
 
15secs to get 95% MHR

Cheers HIITfreak,

I haven't started yet so those were just my intentions. So you can really get up to 95% your MHR in 15secs? I would've thought there would be at least a 5-10 sec delay on maxing out your heart rate and that you'd need to go for bursts at least 30 secs long.

I'll give it a go and see what I come up with. Cheers for the advice. Anymore?
 
Hey theshed, I tried this HIIT yesterday and noted it also took me a bit to get up to my max, so curious about this.

As far as the zig zagging, I've been doing that for several months not as a strategy but more because sometimes I'm a pig and sometimes I have no appetite whatsoever. However, each week I was averaging between 12,000 and 12,500 calories with a calorie deficit of almost 3500 calories. I was steadily losing on this plan until one month ago, when I started a plateau WHILE ZIG ZAGGING. So now I'm thinking maybe what you're saying about zig zagging for whole weeks rather than days may be what my body needs. I dunno!!!! My plan right now is to make sure to eat enough for the next 3 days whenever, or before being, hungry (which is all the time, even on 1800 calories per day which isn't low for a shortie like me), then I was going to do one or two low days. I'll check your log and if you want to see how this goes for me, check in to mine.
 
I doubt VERY much you can reach 95% of max hr in 15 seconds, at least for the first 4 or 5 sprints. I sure can't, and I'm in pretty good shape. When doing HIIT, I'm pushing the elliptical to 280 rpm; I don't think it could go much faster than that!

Frankly, I think this is an academic debate, though. The studies on high intensity interval exercises were more about the effects of reaching 95% in short bursts like that, not about the precisely correct way to do it.

In other words, if you can reach 95% in 15 seconds, great. If it takes you 30 seconds, great. If it climbs up toward a minute, though, the odds are you're doing heavy intervals and not HIIT. But again, as long as you're reaching 95% several times in your workout, I think arguments about it are mainly academic.
 
My version of HIIT has been on a stationary bike. I am up to ten times of this so far, and it really does wear me out but feels great afterwards.

warm up on bike 2 mins going steady but not overly hard effort.

All out biking for about 12 seconds

Rest pace (my bike says it's 2 mph but feh, it feels more like 1) 60 "counted" seconds (every time the right leg went down, it was a count.)

I started with sets of 4, maybe. This maybe took me about ten or fifteen minutes Two times a week. The other days were walking and lifting/resistance.

Now (two months later) I am doing sets of ten, and it takes me about 20-25 mins. I also walk for two minutes, then stretch for 10 minutes after. I still do this only two days of the week. The rest is weights/resistance (two days), hike/walk (1 day), bikeride or stationary bike endurance (1 day), and a rest day.

I found that this has really improved my actual ability on a "real" bike to tackle those hills. ;)

It seems right to me - I am building it as I go.
 
Cheers for the tips

Thanks for the tips they're all appreciated.

I think it's definitely going to be a suck it and see approach. If I try it out, puke and fall off the bike/cross-trainer then I've probably pushed too hard. It's going to take me a week or so to get my HRM so I'll be doing a little more reading around and then I'll give it a go.

As for the zig-zag stuff I think I'm going to read round a bit more before I start with that. As I said I'm still a bit dubious. I did find which seemed to be fairly good. If you post a link to your diary blancita I'll make sure I pop on and check it out. I'll leave any good links I find so you can have a look too.

So is it as difficult as people say? 15 secs of just absolute all out as much as you can give followed by a rest. The most I've pushed my heart rate to is about 85% and that was pretty tiring.
 
It gets better as you go along.
I do 30 second sprints, followed by 1 min. rests. I'm up to about 13 before I conk out. I get up to around 96% and sometimes even 97% of max hr.
 
Thanks

Cheers TomO,

I'm hoping to get going with HIIT next week. It's unbelievable difficult to get your hands on a heart rate monitor in the UK these days. There's just no good sports/fitness shops anymore!

Shed.
 
HIIT Hurts!

My god. I had my first HIIT session yesterday and I still ache. I did 5min warm up, 30secs high/1min low repeated 6 times, then 5 mins cool down. That's all I managed. I think I was a little naive when I went into it but I'll have a little more respect for it next time.

My HR rate hit about 87% max so I'm a little disappointed I didn't get it higher. I did do it on the rowing machine though which isn't my favourite bit of kit so I'll be working round the different machines as I try it out a little more.

For those thinking of giving it a go I'd recommend it. It absolutely kills you but it's a great feeling.
 
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