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Summary
On episode 56 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan breaks down high intensity interval training (HIIT): what it actually is, how to structure it, and why so many people who say they’re “doing HIIT” for 45 minutes at a time aren’t really doing HIIT at all.
He walks through the two halves of the name, high intensity and interval, explaining that a true HIIT work phase is short and maximal, followed by a real recovery period, and that skipping the recovery is where people go wrong.
Allan also covers the Tabata protocol, how HIIT compares to circuit training, and why this is one of the few styles of training where you can genuinely overtrain if you’re not careful with frequency.
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Key Takeaways
- HIIT means 100% effort, not a pace you can hold for 45 minutes. Allan says if you can sustain what you’re calling HIIT for that long, it probably isn’t HIIT. Clients finish a true HIIT session saying they left everything in the workout, not that they could have kept going.
- The “interval” matters as much as the intensity. HIIT alternates a maximal work bout with a genuine recovery period. It is not steady state work, and skipping the rest defeats the purpose.
- Work bouts should be short: about 20 to 30 seconds, all out. Allan typically starts new clients at a 20 second work interval and lets them build from there.
- Rest intervals should run roughly 3 to 4 times the work interval. The goal is to let heart rate and breathing return to a recovered state, around 120 to 125 beats per minute for Allan personally, before starting the next round.
- HIIT creates an afterburn effect that can last up to 24 hours. The elevated metabolism after the workout only pays off if you also eat enough afterward to let your body fully recover.
- This is one of the few training styles you can overtrain. Allan caps HIIT at one or two sessions per week and tells clients to start with just one and add a second only once they’re recovering well.
- Circuit training is not the same thing as HIIT. Moving from station to station without resting has its own benefits, but it doesn’t push heart rate as high as true HIIT because the intensity per station is lower.
- Elliptical, stationary bike, or outdoor sprints work better than a treadmill for true HIIT. A treadmill takes too long to ramp up and slow down to hit a real all out effort in 20 to 30 seconds.
- Tabata is a proven, adaptable HIIT structure: 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest, 8 rounds, for 4 minutes total. Allan often stacks two or three Tabatas with a recovery walk between them, as he did with a client doing a squat Tabata followed by a pushup Tabata.
“To be honest with you, the intensity of a HIIT training is 100%. It’s an all-in thing.”
Coach Allan