I know that for many of you, maintaining a regular fitness routine is a constant struggle, especially if you work long hours and have family commitments.I appreciate that you are often too tired or cannot find the time or motivation to do a regular morning or evening gym session which can take well over an hour + travel time to get to your local gym or studio!
HIIT workouts involve short, intense bursts of exercise which will increase your heart rate and boost your calorie burn, followed by less intense recovery periods. The intense work periods may range from 10 seconds to 8 minutes long, and are performed at 80% to 95% of a person’s estimated maximal heart rate, the maximum number of times your heart will beat in a minute without. overexerting yourself. Depending on your fitness levels you can increase or decrease the length of the intensity interval and recovery period.
The good news is you don’t have to sacrifice all of your free time in order to stay in shape. It’s been scientifically proven that high intensity workouts, known as HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) can be just as effective to improve your fitness levels, help you maintain a healthy weight and improve your general health and wellbeing in a shorter amount of time as the traditional, longer endurance style workouts.
The other great news is that HIIT workouts tend to burn more calories than traditional workouts, especially after the workout. The post-exercise period is called “EPOC”, which stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. This is generally about a 2-hour period after an exercise bout where the body is restoring itself to pre-exercise levels, and thus using more energy. Because of the vigorous nature of HIIT workouts, the EPOC can add about 6 to 15% more calories to the overall workout energy expenditure.
To provide you with guidance and motivation to be able to do your own effective HIIT training at home and save you the time and expense of going to the gym, I have designed, a series of seven, ten-minute HIIT workout videos, one for each day of the week. These HIIT workouts include a variety of cardiovascular exercises, body weight exercises, plyometric exercises and strength based activities and require little or no equipment. If you wish to do all 7 workouts all you will need is a mat, a step bench (stairs can be used) and a set of hand weights.
The idea is that you can do these HIIT workouts anywhere in your home as they require very little space and only minimal equipment. You can either do each one on a daily basis (they will take no longer than 15 minutes with a warm up and cool down) so that over the week you will get a total body workout and will soon see the results of feeling fitter and more toned or if you have more time and prefer to only workout 3-4 times a week you could do 2-4 workouts back to back and get your total body workout in one hit in under an hour.