Dump the Treadmill...LET'S HIIT IT!!!
Flex Wheeler • July 3, 2021
Why you should be doing HIIT/MetCon to burn fat.
“Cardio” is slowly becoming a swear word in the trainer/coach community. Many of the health, fitness, and wellness professionals that I’ve spoken with are starting to treat what the industry terms “cardio” with the scarlet letter “C” when the topic comes up. When dealing with the scarlet C, we are specifically talking about steady state training on a treadmill, stationary bike, elliptical, etc. Think specifically of those rows and rows of $7000+ machines in the gym, full of guilty conscience exercisers on a Monday night after a Superbowl party.
Rather than getting into the why’s and why not’s of the topic, I’ve decided to take on what coaches in the Flex Wheeler Development System are having our clients do instead of steady state cardio.
Metabolic Conditioning is the new frontier! MetCon breaks down to an exercise/movement or a series of exercises/movements from moderate to high intensity, usually performed in a time frame of 20-30 minutes, often in intervals. The goal of this type of programming is to improve both aerobic and anaerobic conditioning. To accomplish this goal, you’ll be at a work rate at or above 80% of your maximal output. This work output is followed by either an active or passive recovery period. Improving on how quickly and efficiently you recover is also a goal/benefit.
Why is this good for a physique athlete? There are quite a few articles on going all out with exercise, thanks to CrossFit...but today I’ll just channel Alwyne Cosgrove’s current research on HIIT training and it’s superior results leading to fat loss. What was found is that proper HIIT training protocols lead to Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption, or EPOC.
It’s efficient, because your exercise session will take about 30 minutes (including rest intervals) and you’ll be burning fat for the rest of the day. Bonus benefit...due to the mechanism of the typically used movements, you just might see some glute and hamstring hypertrophy (just look at the legs on sprinters). As you can see, this would be great for physique and performance athletes, as well as those guys and gals that just want to look great at the pool!
Here’s an example I just posted on Instagram (July 2, 2021):
10 rounds/1:00 rest (or as minimal as needed)
1:00 Battle Rope
100m Heavy Sled Push
All out effort on the Battle Rope, your arms should be jello at the end of the 1:00.
Go as heavy as possible on the sled, but push the distance as fast as possible.
You should be as close to a red-line as possible at the end of each round. If not you either did not go hard enough or you’ll need to add weight on the sled...or both.
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