Best cardio for torching belly fat: HIIT for weight loss

It makes no different whether you are 30lbs overweight or 10lbs, utilising High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) can help you get rid of unwanted belly fat faster than you thought possible. At Forge Fitness we believe this is one of the best cardio routines for weight loss, and while you will still lose weight through diet, weight training and even low intensity exercise (walking and jogging), HIIT is guaranteed to bring you to the next level.

HIIT? Explain!?

As explained above, HIIT is short for high intensity interval training. The principals underlying this protocol is you go hard for a short period of time, then have an active period of recovery. Think of sprinting for 25seconds then walking or jogging for 60seconds. You then repeat this activity several times, adding up to 10 or even 20 mins for amazing effects.

What is the benefit of HIIT?

HIIT can offer countless benefits to everyone, firstly it gives your legs an insane workout, and performing HIIT several times a week will lead to some serious strength development in your legs. Probably the most important benefit is HIIT’s ability to torch fat, quite simply the fat can’t keep up! The intense exercise releases fatty acids into the blood stream to be burned for fuel, it also causes your body to release human growth hormone, and this magic hormone helps to burn fat whilst preserving lean muscle tissue. Another interesting benefit is the ability of HIIT to INCREASE your metabolism, due to an “after burn” or EPOC effect; essentially you burn more calories while doing NOTHING after your workout.

Problems with HIIT

Like every routine, it’s not perfect. It’s simply impossible to perform every day as you will eventually go into a state of “over-training”, you are at an even higher risk if you do weight training several times a week. On training days when your muscles are exhausted, it’s probably more beneficial to opt for steady state cardio!

How Intense?

For the sprint portion of the HIIT protocol, you can opt for a short interval of up to 10-30 seconds which allows for maximum effort, this technique leads to an increase in the release of the magic hormone “human growth hormone”, as well as releasing greater concentrations of fatty acids into your bloodstream.

The longer sprint intervals of 30+ secs require a lot more effort, but the effort will pay off as extra calories are burned and glycogen (sugar in our muscles) stores become depleted. This results in greater fat burned post-exercise!

Recovery time!

Your active recovery protocol has an influence on HIIT results. This is the brisk walking or jog portion that was mentioned earlier in the post. The duration of recovery period is relative to your sprint period. Sprinting for 20sec and walking for 20sec gives a ratio of 1:1, likewise sprinting for 15secs and 45secs walking yields a 3:1 ratio.

The more time spent recovering, the greater effort you can apply to the next interval, the greater effort results in more HGH release and a longer recovery period is more beneficial in cases were overtraining is a risk.

Short recovery times will result in a greater build up of lactic acid (this is the soreness in muscles during exercise), glycogen becomes depleted quicker and there is generally a larger after burn or EPOC effect. This protocol however puts you at a greater risk of over-training.

Summary

Okay in our opinion the BEST form of cardio, if your goal is weight-loss, is a combination of these HIIT protocols. This leads to a large release of HGH, liberation of fatty acids from stubborn fat cells, depleting the carbs from your muscles and increased metabolism meaning more calories burnt at rest. For the first part of the workout we like short sprints with longer recovery (15sec sprint followed by 45second jog). This results in fatty acid release, and enhanced hgh secretion. A light warm up is suggested for 1.5mins, then perform 8 sets of HIIT to total a 10min workout.

Next we throw in some LIIS, (low intensity steady state), try for 25mins of light jogging or brisk walking. This allows our muscles to recover and helps torch off the fatty acids we released into our system in the first protocol.

Finally we perform long sprints with short recovery, this will maximise our fat burning by completely depleting our glycogen stores and creates an intense after burn effect. This involves one minute of spring followed by one minute of light jogging, it’s going to be tough but stick at it! Again stick to a time period of around 10mins.

Bingo! Forty-five mins of hardcore HIIT cardio which will provide you with the BEST cardio for weight loss. Utilizing this routine allows you to torch belly fat quicker than you thought possible and is sure to be effecting no matter how much weight you have left to go!

Forge Fitness Tips!
-@ForgeFitnessIre on twitter

a) High intensity interval training (HIIT) is the best for losing fat

b) Change it up and differ your sprint times to boost HGH or to eat up glycogen stores

c) Vary your recovery protocols to raise HGH, torch calories and help recovery

d) Use a combination of HIIT protocols for a great workout: 10min short interval, 25 low intensity cardio and a final 10 mins of longer spring/recovery HIIT