Primal Blog

High intensity interval training (HIIT) is tough. It places immense demands on your body during and after the workout. This is not a training protocol that should be taken lightly.

Rest is ESPECIALLY important when you are doing HIIT. Many people believe in fitness mantras like, “Go hard or go home” … or “I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.”

All that sounds well and good… until you start doing HIIT daily. Then your body feels drained and you start aching everywhere. Any fat loss you were experiencing comes to a halt because your central nervous system is ‘burned out’ and you have just hit a weight loss plateau.

Now you will need to rest a few days before things return to normal. All this can be avoided by knowing when to rest and how long to rest for.

• Duration of rest intervals

During your HIIT workouts, your rest intervals could be anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds. Sometimes it may feel like this short period is not enough for you to catch your breath. 

If you really need more rest, go ahead and rest and pump out the remaining reps when you have the energy to. While the goal is to train at maximum intensity, you must also know your body and not go overboard.

Do not remove the rest intervals in your HIIT workouts and think that you can rest at the end of it all. The rest intervals are required to give you a few seconds to recharge so that you can give maximum effort on the next set.

• Staggering the exercises

Initially, when you are starting HIIT, you may wish to place exercises that work different body parts back to back. For example, a set of squats can be followed by a set of push ups.

Now your legs have time to rest and recover while you are doing the push ups and working your arms. After the push ups, you could do an exercise that works the core like reverse wood chops… and that will give your legs more time to rest… and after that you can hit them again with jumping lunges.

So, structure your workout in a way where you do not overly tax your body parts. Later, when you are much fitter you can go ahead and train them hard, but initially, approach your training in a systematic and progressive manner.

• Frequency of sessions

Try not to do more than 3 HIIT sessions a week. These are amazingly effective workouts and you will be in fat burning mode long after the workout is over. You do not need to do them daily to see faster results.

If you are new to training and have led a sedentary lifestyle for years, you may wish to do HIIT just once or twice a week. Always have a day or two breaks between each HIIT session.

Do not do HIIT on consecutive days. If you do HIIT today, tomorrow you could go for a walk or do some resistance training. Give your body time to rest and recover.

If you rest during and between your sessions, not only will your aerobic and anaerobic fitness improve, but you will see much faster progress. Music is the space between the notes. Rest well, but do not rest too long.