HIIT on the Precor Elliptical?

elzinator wrote:>
> Read below.
> BTW, you're supposed to be 'struggling' with intervals.
Thank you. Very helpful.
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

Roger Zoul wrote:> ||
> || I'm trying to lose weight which is why I have stepped up my cardio
> || training. Currently, I do weights for each body part 1 time a
week,
> || with max intensity. My weight routine, I suppose, could be
> || classified as "powerlifting style." I've made great gains in
> || strength in 2.5 months doing it that way.
>
> That sounds a bit scary to me. Have you only been lifting for 2.5
months?

I started lifting in 1987 and took a 3 year layoff (with a few false
starts) beginning in 2001, until this past Nov, when I finally got my
act together again.
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

Deb wrote:
|| Charles wrote:>
||| If your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is too high, then ease back
||| on the effort until you are able to cope comfortably. That doesn't
||| mean you have to lower the resistance on the machine, just slow down
||| the rate (intensity) that you are doing the exercise.
||
|| Yes, I'll try that.
||
|||
||| The hear rate (HR) does not appear to be particularly high, but that
||| will depend on your age and level of fitness.
||
|| I'm 37 and female. My level of fitness would be classified as
|| "medium.">
||
||| You may be spending too much time on the CV part of your training
||| programme, which might be better spent on weight training. Try a
||| whole body weights session followed by perhaps 20- 30 minutes CV.
||
|| I'm trying to lose weight which is why I have stepped up my cardio
|| training. Currently, I do weights for each body part 1 time a week,
|| with max intensity. My weight routine, I suppose, could be
|| classified as "powerlifting style." I've made great gains in
|| strength in 2.5 months doing it that way.

That sounds a bit scary to me. Have you only been lifting for 2.5 months?
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

Deb wrote:
|| elzinator wrote:>
||| Read below.
||| BTW, you're supposed to be 'struggling' with intervals. Thank you.
||| Very helpful.

That is very helpful, actually.
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

Deb wrote:
|| Roger Zoul wrote:> ||
||||| I'm trying to lose weight which is why I have stepped up my cardio
||||| training. Currently, I do weights for each body part 1 time a
||||| week, with max intensity. My weight routine, I suppose, could be
||||| classified as "powerlifting style." I've made great gains in
||||| strength in 2.5 months doing it that way.
|||
||| That sounds a bit scary to me. Have you only been lifting for 2.5
||| months?
||
|| I started lifting in 1987 and took a 3 year layoff (with a few false
|| starts) beginning in 2001, until this past Nov, when I finally got my
|| act together again.

Oh, so you're no newbie!
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

"frank-in-toronto" <thehickOBVIOUS.TakeThisOut@OBVIOUScanada.com> wrote in message
news:o8h0v0d80j7adg44kt7ra43s3oj3h9vl4i@4ax.com...
> On 20 Jan 2005 13:52:57 -0800, "Deb" <MagicTentacle.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It's me again. I've been doing the "interval" program on the Precor at
>>the gym.
> firstly, i'd suggest you cross-post this to a more fitness oriented
> news-group. running or bicycling would be a possibility.
>
> having said that, let me throw in a few thoughts.
>
> this whole HIIT concept has no support among any
> of the world's endurance trainers. so, i'll have to
> presume you're doing it to increase caloric usage
> while exercising. you might think about the true
> value in that. it's a piddly amount anyway.

Offhand, I can't think of any endurance sport where you don't do a
significant amount of interval training at some point in the season.
Certainly your typical cycling training (since you mention it) programme
will involve building a lot of base miles through winter, transition to
rides with interval work through spring, races involve a lot of interval
work.

> HIIT trains mostly the anaerobic element (maybe i'm using
> some wrong terms here but i'm close). most coaches
> recommend this not be greater than 10% of your
> training time/distance. the rest should be aerobic.

Done properly, average power output doing HIIT is not much lower than doing
aerobic threshold work for the same period of time. So it requires a similar
amount of cardio fitness.
Reasons why you might want to do other things than HIIT are:
if your sport is technical, your technique is not likely to improve doing
hard intervals; if anything it gets worse as you fall into bad habits when
you fatigue. LSD work is good for improving technique.
if your sport involves >2 hour races, you need to be able to burn fats more
and carbs less, or you run out of energy faster than the competition. HIIT
work (probably) doesn't train that, LSD type work does.

> the idea is that the aerobic type exercise improves your
> muscle ?mitachondria? and makes your heart grow
> somehow to pump more per beat.

The same somehow that lifting big things makes your legs grow so you can
lift more, AIUI.

Peter
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

frank-in-toronto <thehickOBVIOUS.DeleteThis@OBVIOUScanada.com> wrote in
news:o8h0v0d80j7adg44kt7ra43s3oj3h9vl4i@4ax.com:

> this whole HIIT concept has no support among any
> of the world's endurance trainers.

Most people doing HIIT in MFW are not doing it for endurance.

> so, i'll have to
> presume you're doing it to increase caloric usage
> while exercising.

Wrong. Its generally to increase caloric usage whilst *not* exercising
(in two ways , longer lasting post-excercise elevated metabolism and
also muscle sparing in comparison to "straight" cardio).
If anything it *decreases* caloric usage whilst exercising, and time
spent.

A lot of people dont like spending ages on the treadmill and find
constant pace boring. Its a win-win for many people whose goal is fat
loss and mantaining reasonable cardio fitness but dont want to clock up
miles or excessive time on the treadmill.

>you might think about the true
> value in that. it's a piddly amount anyway.

In terms of overall fat loss?

http://www.exrx.net/FatLoss/HIITvsET.html

"The HIIT group lost over 3 times as much subcutanious fat as the ET
group despite of only expending less than half as many calories. [whilst
excercising]"

http://www.wsu.edu/~strength/hiit.htm

"Tremblay et al (23) performed the most notable study which
demonstrates that high-intensity exercise, specifically intermittent,
supramaximal exercise, is the most optimal for fat loss. Subjects
engaged in either an endurance training (ET) program for 20 weeks or a
high-intensity intermittent-training (HIIT) program for 15 weeks. The
mean estimated energy cost of the ET protocol was 120.4 MJ, while the
mean estimated energy cost of the HIIT protocol was 57.9 MJ. The
decrease in six subcutaneous skinfolds tended to be greater in the HIIT
group than the ET group, despite the dramatically lower energy cost of
training. When expressed on a per MJ basis, the HIIT group's reduction
in skinfolds was nine times greater than the ET group."

Lordy
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frank-in-toronto <thehickOBVIOUS DeleteThis @OBVIOUScanada.com> wrote in
news:o8h0v0d80j7adg44kt7ra43s3oj3h9vl4i@4ax.com:

> this whole HIIT concept has no support among any
> of the world's endurance trainers.

I wanted to seperate the endurance argument form the fat loss one,
because its not relevant to the OP.
But I think you're wrong here too FWIW!

Lordy
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

"Roger Zoul" <rogerzoul2 RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote in news:35co40F4m7jroU1
@individual.net:

> Deb wrote:
>|| elzinator wrote:>
>||| Read below.
>||| BTW, you're supposed to be 'struggling' with intervals. Thank you.
>||| Very helpful.
>
> That is very helpful, actually.
>
>
Out of interest -
Why is your newreader configured to butcher the standard quoting on other
posts?

Lordy
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

Lordy wrote:
|| "Roger Zoul" <rogerzoul2 RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote in news:35co40F4m7jroU1
|| @individual.net:
||
||| Deb wrote:
||||| elzinator wrote:>
|||||| Read below.
|||||| BTW, you're supposed to be 'struggling' with intervals. Thank
|||||| you. Very helpful.
|||
||| That is very helpful, actually.
|||
|||
|| Out of interest -
|| Why is your newreader configured to butcher the standard quoting on
|| other posts?
||
|| Lordy

I have no idea what you're talking about.
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

On 2005-01-20, Deb <MagicTentacle.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:

> So, I've been doing 45 minutes on this thing, with 4 as the low and 7
> as the high. HR is about 145 on the low end and 160 at the high
> end...and I'm struggling in the second minute of the high intervals.

Sounds good.

> Question is - aren't intervals supposed to be two different lengths?

Depends on the workout. Longer rests make the workout more anaerobic. 1:1 is
OK, even for endurance work.

> Like 30 seconds on the low, just enough to recover, and then 90 seconds
> full out max pain effort?

Your work intervals are not going to be "full out" at 1:1, and not even close
at 3:1.

For example, one of my interval workouts is 12x400m with 200m joggin in
between. The jog takes about 70 seconds, the workbout takes about 76 seconds.
But my race pace for the mile is 72 seconds per lap. So my pace during the
reps is 16 seconds per mile slower than mile race pace -- not even close to
all-out. If I were to reduce the rests to 30 seconds, my pace would probably
drop even more, maybe to about 80 seconds per lap.

> Is the current routine doing anything for me? Furthermore, is it
> safe?

Yep.

> I'd love to do this on the treadmill, but the treads at my gym don't
> even have intervals as an option.

Most treadmills have hill programs. Which has much the same effect -- you get
variation in intensity.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

On 2005-01-20, Deb <MagicTentacle.RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's me again. I've been doing the "interval" program on the Precor at
> the gym. Problem is, the machine is pre-set for two minutes low, two
> minutes high intensity. There is no way to change that. All I can
> change is the resistance level for the high and low.
>
> So, I've been doing 45 minutes on this thing, with 4 as the low and 7
> as the high. HR is about 145 on the low end and 160 at the high

Another thing to add -- anything more than about 20 minutes total time on
the faster pace is probably counter productive -- it just reduces the
intensity that you can train at. I think 10-15 minutes is a good amount of
time at the faster pace. Over 15 minutes is a little long, but over 20 is
excessive, and imo once you're going over 20 minutes you're probably not
really doing high intensity work any more.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical? 

On 21 Jan 2005 07:29:07 -0800, "Deb" <MagicTentacle RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:

>
>Charles wrote:>
>> If your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is too high, then ease back
>> on the effort until you are able to cope comfortably. That doesn't
>> mean you have to lower the resistance on the machine, just slow down
>> the rate (intensity) that you are doing the exercise.
>
>Yes, I'll try that.
>
>>
>> The hear rate (HR) does not appear to be particularly high, but that
>> will depend on your age and level of fitness.
>
>I'm 37 and female. My level of fitness would be classified as
>"medium.">

Your heart rate is fine for your age and fitness level, so try using
the RPE method to gauge intensity levels, it's far more accurate.

>
>> You may be spending too much time on the CV part of your training
>> programme, which might be better spent on weight training. Try a
>whole
>> body weights session followed by perhaps 20- 30 minutes CV.
>
>I'm trying to lose weight which is why I have stepped up my cardio
>training.

It is a very boring and not particularly effective method of losing
weight. Have another honest look at your calorie intake and adjust
accordingly to perhaps 500 calories a day less than maintenance.

>Currently, I do weights for each body part 1 time a week,
>with max intensity. My weight routine, I suppose, could be classified
>as "powerlifting style." I've made great gains in strength in 2.5
>months doing it that way.

I should consider again my suggestion to do a whole body schedule
three times a week, followed by 20-30 minutes CV which will be much
more effective, as you will already be tired from your weights
session, and your efforts will raise your HR that much quicker.

This will have the effect of raising your metabolism and improving
your weight loss potential.

>
>Thanks for your advice.

My pleasure.

Have a great weekend - I always do!! ;o)

TFIF!!
 >> Stay informed about: HIIT on the Precor Elliptical?