Trainers in the fitness industry have turned against steady-state jogging recently. Everybody these days is touting the benefits of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which refers to a form of cardio that undulates between intense periods of exercise interspersed with moderate or easy periods. For example, you would run hard for 30 seconds and then run easy for 1 minute. Rest-to-work periods vary, but the principal is the same.
I’m not going to deny the benefits of interval training. I incorporate it myself and I find it beneficial to increasing my top speed. Everybody should include it, whether you are a recreational “jogger” or an elite runner, or whether you specialize in the one mile, the 10k, or the marathon.
Jogging gets a bad reputation for several reasons. It takes a lot of time. To get any kind of results, you have to run for a sustained period of time to accrue any kind of benefit. Despite the recommendations by the World Health Organization to get 30 minutes of exercise per day, that’s the bare minimum, and it seems more like an inducement to get people to exercise. If the WHO told people they had to do 45-60 minutes each day, people would say they don’t have enough time. The thinking is that 30 minutes is better than nothing.
Long, slow jogging can also be boring. Doing the same form of exercise at the same speed, at the same intensity every day can get monotonous. This might explain one reason why people can’t adhere to an exercise program.
Another reason is that the body adapts to any form of exercise and that benefits diminish. This is simply the law of diminishing returns. When you first start exercising, the benefits come right away. Then they slowly diminish over time. That’s why some people can’t seem to lose any more weight. Their bodies have adapted to the form of exercise they’re doing.
Jogging also doesn’t elevate metabolism long after the workout is completed. In other words, you only burn calories during the workout but nothing after the workout. So if you jog for 45 minutes, the caloric burn stops as soon as you end the workout. On the other hand, HIIT workouts elevate your metabolism well after the workout has ended. This is called EPOC, or excess post-oxygen consumption. So not only does HIIT burn more calories per minute, but the afterburn of the workout will burn more calories. Jogging has no such after effect.
So fitness professionals have been telling people to do nothing but HIIT. Forget jogging. It’s inefficient. Your body just adapts to jogging. It’s an ineffective way to burn fat. It’s so common in the fitness industry to take things too far. This is another example. Trainers completely abandon one methodology for another. A few studies show the after effects of HIIT and all the sudden HIIT is the latest rage.
I’m not denying the benefits of HIIT: more efficient, more calories burned afterwards, etc. But rarely do trainers ever discuss the downside to HIIT. People who are just new to jogging and haven’t ever exercised should not do HIIT. They should instead establish an aerobic base (which they don’t have). After they have established that base, then they can slowly incorporate HIIT into their program. Prescribing hit to someone who has never jogged or ran in their life is a recipe for disaster. It’s like taking a high-school pitcher and sending him to the major leagues. He needs to progress through single, double and triple AAA before he’s ready for the big leagues. Non-exercisers need to progress in the same way. They need to establish a routine first, and then start doing short intervals. Eventually they increase the speed, incline or time of the interval.
But it’s important not to completely disregard the benefits of steady-state aerobic exercise. Women’s Health had a great article just last month about the benefits of jogging. It reports the following:
Researchers at Stanford University discovered that regular runners have a 39 percent lower risk of dying an early death compared with healthy adults of the same age.
Running can help prevent cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, osteoporosis, and even cancer
Most recently, a 2009 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that running is as good a bone-builder as strength training.
The Journal of Anatomy found that running does not increase your risk of osteoarthritis, the cartilage decay that causes pain and inflammation in hip and knee joints. Nor does it wreck your back, according to a research review in the Southern Medical Journal. Researchers suggest that because running builds stronger muscles and ligaments.
Tom Holland, an exercise physiologist in Darien, Connecticut. "The reason runners can sometimes appear weathered is that they're thinner— low body fat makes fine lines more visible— and they're out in the sun more. Jogging also relieves stress and forces you to focus. Believe me, some of my best ideas have come on the treadmill!
Opponents also criticize the lack of muscle that marathoners and joggers have. They are contradicting themselves when they say this. On the one hand, they say that jogging is an inefficient way to burn fat. On the other hand, they like to point out how joggers look frail and weak. You know why? Because running burns so many calories that it’s almost impossible to gain muscle! I know that first hand. I can’t tell you how many trainers have told me to limit my cardio to gain muscle. Limiting cardio would impair my performance in triathlon. But if jogging doesn’t burn fat, then why can’t runners gain muscle?
The physiques of marathoners and sprinters are often compared to convince people that HIIT is the only solution to burning fat. Marathoners look weak and skinny, while sprinters look muscular and sleek. First of all, unless you train like Olympic sprinters, you’re not going to look like one. You don’t have the time, genetics, or inclination to train like them. So you’re not going to look like them when you do HIIT. Marathoners look skinny, but they have extremely low amounts of body fat, which is what people want. It’s a myth that marathoners have higher percentages of body fat. Proponents of HIIT say it’s because their levels of a hormone called cortisol are higher. This is false. Most marathoners have extremely low percentages of body fat.
I’d also like to remind you of what marathoner Bill Rodgers said, “if you want to win something, win a 100 m sprint. If you want to accomplish something, win a marathon.” I don’t care how sleek and muscular sprinters look. I’d rather look weak and have the endurance to run for several hours than to run for 100 meters.
If jogging is such a poor way to lose fat, then why have so many people lost weight doing it? I’ve talked to so many people who say they lose weight simply by exercising. They didn’t do any kind of HIIT. They would have lost weight faster had they incorporated HIIT, but the extra jogging create the energy deficit they needed to lose weight.
Even seasoned runners spend much of their winter training establishing an aerobic base. While many have questioned this methodology as well, there aren’t many runners who don’t do a significant amount of “base” training during the offseason as well. In fact, a study of marathoners just a few years ago showed that more than 80% of the training was at an “easy pace” while the other 20% consisted of threshold runs, hill repeats and speed work.
The opponents of steady-state jogging also fail to realize that jogging burns a significant amount of calories. It burns more than swimming, cycling, rowing, and the elliptical because of its high-impact nature. So if somebody who has never exercised before starts to jog 30 minutes every day and doesn’t increase his caloric intake, then that person will lose weight. At first the amount of weight he loses will be significant, and will eventually reach a plateau. He will reach a plateau only when the body becomes so efficient at jogging for 30 minutes that it negates the original caloric gap between expenditure and intake.
Opponents of jogging say that once the body adapts, then you will have to jog farther at the same pace to get the same effect. But if you start jogging for 30 minutes at 6.0 MPH, then eventually you will be able to run farther in the same amount of time at the same intensity. In other words, running one mile today will be just as easy as running 1.5 miles in the future. A mile is insurmountable to people who have never jogged before. But marathoners can run an “easy” mile in 6:00 minutes, believe it or not.
HIIT also has the same limitations. Even though the EPOC of interval training is higher, if somebody does the same workout over and over, he will eventually stop losing weight because the body will adapt. This is what enthusiasts of HIIT never mention. The body will adapt to interval training too. That’s why it’s important to increase the speed, duration, or intensity of the interval. Joggers need to challenge their bodies in the same way.
So how do you incorporate HIIT? In depends on your history, available time, and frequency that you run. If you’ve just started to run, I’d start jogging at an easy pace for 3-4 weeks and establish a base. If you can’t run a mile, you have no reason doing HIIT. Once you feel comfortable jogging for 30 minutes, add some intervals to your program. A typical program would look like this for somebody who can run just three times per week:
Weeks 1-41.
1.30-40 minutes easy
2.30-40 minutes easy
3. 30-40 minutes easy
Weeks 5-8
1. 10 min warm up 10x (20 seconds hard, 60 seconds easy), 10 min cool down
2. 30-40 minutes easy
3. 10 min warm up 10x (20 second hill sprint, 60 seconds easy) 10 min cool down
Weeks 9-12
1.10 min warm up, 5 min moderate, 5 min hard, 10 min cool down
2. 40-50 minutes easy
3. 10 min warm up 10x (30 seconds hard, 60 seconds easy)
After you’ve been running for 12 weeks, you can then start to increase the length of the intervals, decrease the rest time, increase the speed or incline, and increase the duration of the entire workout.
I hope I’ve brought sanity to the argument about HIIT vs. jogging. HIIT is certainly sexy while jogging is not, but both have their place. Neither one will bring optimal results by themselves. They need to be incorporated into a program. Without HIIT, you’ll become a slow jogger. With no jogging, you’ll burn out and you’ll never increase endurance.
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