Something's wrong?

[Lokhtar]

Right now, here is what I do:

4 minute warmup (jog at 3.8mph).
1 minute run (8.0 mph)
4 minute jog (3.8mph)
1 minute run (8.0 mph)
4 minute jog (3.8 mph)
1 minute run (8.0 mph)

At the end of that, I am completely spent, I can barely walk for my cooldown. Am I doing something wrong? This is my first week at HIIT and I am very overweight. I have lost 20 pounds over the last two months or so with a little weight lifting, a little cardio (eliptical) and eating right. The results are slowing down a little bit, and I still have about 40-45 pounds to go, so I thought I'd give HIIT a try.

 

[dswithers]

You might want to try cutting the intervals down to 15 seconds sprint and 2 minutes slow jog. 6-8 sprint intervals is all anyone needs, and the total time should be no more than 20 minutes. Do no more than 2 or 3 sessions a week. As your fitness improves you can lengthen the sprints up to 30 seconds. Remember the focus is on the intensity of the sprint, not the length. The sprint should be an all out 100% sprint at a pace you can not possibly keep up longer than 15 seconds.

 

[Lokhtar]

If you're having that hard a time, you need to take it a little slower. You can hurt yourself if you're overweight doing this kind of stuff.

Also, it's not exactly HIIT. HIIT is a 2:1 ratio.

Does it have to be 2:1? Because I do not think I can sprint for 1 minute with only a 2 minute rest period (and do it for 5-6 intervals). Maybe if I walked for two minutes, it MIGHT work for a little bit. What should I do?

 

[Lokhtar]

You could do shorter intervals until you worked up to the longer ones, or you could do walk / jog instead of jog / sprint

If something is simply too intense for your body, you have to recognize that and adjust, otherwise you could be hurting yourself. HIIT def. shouldn't be easy, but you shouldn't puke at the end either. HIIT is the kind of thing you have to work yourself into.

But I should keep it 2:1? The 4:1 thing I do seems to be the limit for me, maybe I should try 30sec:1min and see how long I can keep that up? If I can do 10 sessions of that, its 15 minutes.

10 sessions seem like a lot, but I'll try it out. Add 3-4 min cool down and a 3-4 min warmup, and the total time seems to be right though.

 

[dswithers]

Why does HIIT have to be 2:1??? If you read the studies and recomendations you will find just about every immaginable length of High Intensity Interval (from 10 seconds to 5 minutes) and intervening low intensity interval (from 10 seconds to 5 minutes). I'm not sure anyone can unequivically say what is the ideal length of the intervals or ratio of the interval lengths that results in optimal benefit. In fact, like all things exercise related, I'm sure it varies for each individual and with various pysiological and psychological factors. HIIT simply means the High Intensity Intervals must be done at a pace that is at or very near to a 100% effort, meaning you cannot possibly do it any faster, which generally means that you can not do it for more than about 30 seconds without your pace slowing. The average healthy fit person can not maintain their maximum sprint pace for any longer than 15-30 seconds.