Rayan Karkadan What if I told you that there was an exercise routine that both children and grandmothers could do? What if I told you that this exercise technique is shorter, faster and more effective than ordinary routines that we are used to hearing about? High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is exactly that for several interesting reasons. The most important one is probably the fact that today in 2014 we simply don't have time to do anything. We don't have time to go to the gym. We don't have time to read and prepare sophisticated exercise routines. And we surely don't have time to waste on marketing scams and ineffective how-to methods that are everywhere these days. This is why HIIT emerges as a savior and might in fact solve our problems, as it has for many around the fitness and lifestyle world today. One important feature about this method is that it depends on personal effort, not numbers on a treadmill or the blessing of your coach or trainer. It simply requires you to give your best, and the body's physiology will do the rest. In other words, the effort is relative to your own abilities. This is why, as mentioned in the introduction, anyone at any age in any place can achieve results with this new, trendy exercise. Another brilliant feature is that you can use almost any exercise you like to reach the results you want using this technique. You really don't have to go out of your comfort zone and change the activity you like. This is because the main factor that determines whether it's effective or not is your heart rate. If you can get your heart rate up, it does not matter whether you are running, swimming or cycling, you will see results. For example, it is normally recommended that you jog/run for 60 minutes, 5 days a week if you want to lose weight. But with HIIT you can get the same exact results with only 22 minutes. A simple recommended routine for running with HIIT would be: walk to warm up for 2 minutes; then jog at 60% of your maximum effort for 1 minute; then Jog faster at 70% for 1 minute; then run at 80% for another minute; finally, run faster at 90% for a minute. One easy way to measure your effort is to assume that 100% is your fastest sprint that you would do if there was a police dog running after you, for example. If you were writing this down, you would have recorded 4 minutes, each minute in a certain speed. This is called a cycle. But the whole HIIT routine calls for 5 cycles consecutively to achieve the best results. Again, this is highly dependent on your effort, so if you can't complete 5 cycles, it's alright. But keep working until you reach it. And the greatest thing about this is you don't have to do it every day. Three times a week is more than enough to achieve the same results you would from your daily, boring 60 minute jog. Scientifically, HIIT training works on expanding your lung capacity, which in turn increases a measure called VO2 max. In other words, oxygen is important to burn fat in our bodies, and this exercise does just that by increasing our ability to utilize oxygen. And since oxygen is important for all ages, you can safely forward this exercise to just about anyone in the family. Just make sure your grandfather takes it easy the first couple of times. I suggest he starts with a fast walk instead of a jog. — Dr. Rayan Karkadan is a general physician entrepreneur/creative director of Mizan Health Co. @rayankarkadan
