Over the long haul, HIIT workouts improve your heart health, build lean muscle, improve athletic performance, and even your brain health. Here’s how HIIT-ing a high-intensity interval workout a few times a week can improve your physical health and quality of life over the long term:
HIIT Workouts Build Lean Muscle for the Long Haul
To build muscle, you must push hard enough to put your muscles under the appropriate amount of stress for an adaptive reaction to occur. Cardio alone can’t do that—HIIT can.
A science-informed HIIT program will never let you plateau. HIIT workouts are built around short, explosive periods of all-out work followed by short periods of rest. This makes them almost infinitely customizable. As your fitness improves, you can add weight, reps, or intensity to continue exhausting muscles and encouraging them to grow stronger–even ten years into your regimen.
HIIT Reduces Visceral Fat for Better Heart Health
HIIT classes target visceral fat—the pesky layer of fat that wraps around your organs and is linked to issues like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Having less visceral fat and more muscle can prevent chronic diseases and reduce your risk of cardiometabolic disease as you age.
After a 45-minute HIIT class, your resting metabolic rate will be higher all day long. This is called the afterburn effect, and all those extra calories burnt can translate into more efficient weight loss.
HIIT Enhances Athletic Performance
Science shows that HIIT leads to bigger gains in cardiorespiratory fitness, functional capacity, and lactate threshold compared to moderate intensity continuous training (MICT). Lactic acid, produced during intense exercise, causes muscle fatigue, soreness, and reduced performance.
A couple of HIIT classes a week can increase the lactate threshold, enabling you to exercise at higher intensities for longer durations before burning out. Over time, this means HIIT training can help you do more of what you love with ease–whether that’s finishing a 10K, hiking on the weekends, or dancing the night away with your friends.
A Workout That HIITs Your Brain Too
Brain-derived neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is a chemical in the brain that acts like a crossing guard, helping information get from one part of the brain to the other. After your first HIIT class, you’ll experience a quick boost in BDNF, helping your mood, focus, and cognition improve.
If you keep coming back for more—and believe us, your brain will want to—you’ll begin seeing a sustained increase in BDNF. Having a little more focus after a workout is great, but with consistent BDNF production, areas of the brain associated with memory begin to grow. That’s right, you’ll grow your biceps and brain with every class.
Work harder, get smarter.
Reap The Rewards of HIIT at Body Machine Fitness
Before you can take advantage of a healthier heart, more lean muscle, improved fitness and increased brain capacity, you need to get started on your HIIT journey.
Take your first rep toward lifelong fitness today with a free group fitness class at Body Machine Fitness. Check out our schedules in Ft. Worth or Plano.