Whilst attending the practical workshop for my Level 3 in Personal Training, one controversial topic that came up was the debate of steady state verses high intensity interval training (HIIT).  There is a lot of conflicting information out there but from what I can see HIIT seems to be the most popular at the moment.  Everyone leads such a busy life and for those in Dubai we work long hours and life seems to move at a ridiculously fast pace!  When are we meant to find the time to exercise too?!  I think this is why HIIT has become so popular.  In 20-30 mins you can burn some serious calories, work up a huge sweat and then you are good to go!

I like to do my HIIT in the morning before work.  As we can see from fitness bloggers like The Body Coach and Clean Eating Alice, this can even be done in your own living room if you don’t have access to a gym.  Set your alarm 30 minutes early and you can get your workout done before the day even starts!  I have listed some of my favourite exercises which you could include in a living room HIIT workout.  I downloaded an Interval Timer app on my phone to keep me right.  Depending on your fitness level you can do 30 seconds of exercise-30 seconds rest, 40 seconds exercise-20 seconds rest or 45 seconds exercise-15 seconds rest.  This is definitely something I plan on looking at more closely in a future blog but gives a few tips to get started with.  I like to pick a plyometric (jumping) exercise followed by a core exercise and swap them around choosing 10 exercises and repeating this 3 times to get my 30 minute workout.  Happy training!

HIIT Ideas

High Knees

Mountain Climbers

Burpees

Squat Jumps

Step Ups

Jumping Lunges

Star Jumps

Russian Twists

Bicycle Crunches

Plank

Alternating Lunges

Curtsey Lunges

 

So many possibilities!!