High Intensity Interval Training – Short bursts of VERY intense exercise with rest periods, either active or complete. May be heavy strength focused, burst training, super high intensity cardio, plyometrics.
1/ Anti-aging
– stimulates Telomerase, an anti aging hormone that operates at a cellular level (at a DNA level in fact)
– reduces P53 expression, a protein that contributes to aging and tumor development
2/ Firmer skin
3/ Increased Energy
4/ Boosts metabolism – EPOC Excess, post exercise Oxygen consumption. Your body has to work harder for many hours post HIIT to get you out of anaerobic deficit.
5/ Improves Libido
6/ Builds lean muscle mass
7/ Promotes fat burning (as a fuel course)
8/ Hormone Balance
- Ghrelin – Hunger hormone, stimulates appetite, slows down fat usage, responsible for food cravings, released in response to stress (stress eating). HIIT causes a decline in Ghrelin
- Leptin – The starvation hormone. Gives us the sense of being full
- HIIT balances both above hormones, therefore increasing fat burn and fat loss and is an excellent way of managing unhealthy eating behavior.
9/ Testosterone – elevated means weight loss…BUT it inhibits leptin activity. Decreased leptin = fat gain.
HIIT increases both leptin and testosterone AND HIIT creates a rare environment where leptin is relatively impervious to the effects of Testosterone = WINNING.
10/ Increase in Human Growth Hormone – repair.
11/ Extremely efficient cardiovascular effect – Superior to steady state exercise like, running, cycling, rowing.
You will note that Fasting and HIIT benefits show similar trends. If done in tandem, we can expect a synergistic effect.