I have been on a fat loss protocol for the past 4 months or so. Simultaneously, I have been rehabbing a knee injury.
I started out doing HIIT twice a week that consists of six 30 second bike sprints w/ 4 minutes of active rest between. I have added 2 fast walking sessions on an incline for 40-50 minutes post lifting (PPL) as time has gone on. I have also added some grass running in the middle of the HIIT that goes: 100 yd jog, 100 x 2 working up to 90 percent of full speed (10s rest), 100 yd at full run (but not a sprint).
As it seems like I’ve made progress w/ the knee, I would like to incorporate the mile run into my conditioning and I’m not sure how to do this under a fat loss protocol, as it seems too long to be classified as HIIT, but too short for steady state.
I was thinking once a week would be enough for now, and I would start out slow w/ maybe a 12 minute pace. I guess maybe I could do my HIIT first and then the run or just use the slow pace as a warm up?
A couple weeks ago, I changed up my conditioning for a session (bike was out of commission) with 4 sessions of the “sprinting” protocol above with another round of tire flips and chinups and another round of stair sprints. My knee felt fine, but I had trouble recovering, even after 2 rest days.
Here’s my 2-cents: If your goal is fat loss while maintaining muscle, 1 mile runs are not your best bet. I would recommend doing interval work 2-3 times a week. Not sure what your schedule is like, but I lift weights 3x/week: Monday: Upper Body/ Wednesday: Legs/ Friday: Upper Body. I do my interval work AFTER the two upper body workouts (Monday and Friday). On Leg days, I may do a “finisher” type exercise at the end (farmers walks, high rep squats, etc), but I am certainly not running any sprints.
If you are training hard, and doing the HIIT workouts at the intensity they should be done at, this is more than enough to get lean. (and i would question if 6 30 second intervals on a bike IS intense enough…for hill sprints, that sort of volume would be fine, but i find the bike, and most other cardio machines to be inadequate for true HIIT workouts) The 40 minutes of fast walking after your workouts is a waste of time. If you enjoy it, then great, continue. But it is not making an impact on your physique.
The mile runs can also be fun. And if its something you are hell-bent on doing, by all means do it. But if your main goal is fat loss, I would not eliminate a HIIT workout. What I’d probably do is incorporate it on off days, or after an upper body workout so long as it’s not replacing a HIIT workout.
Long story short: Get your fat loss program set. (i.e: Weighlifting workouts, and 2-3 HIIT workouts per week). And then, if you WANT, plug in a mile run or two in whatever free time you have within that schedule. Hope that helps.
3-4 sweight lifting sessions with 2 good quality interval running sessions should be adequate. I highly recommend 400 metre sprints. 5 all-out runs with 90 seconds rest in between each run, and then try to add the amount of runs you can do every week.
Thanks for the advice guys, though you essentially gave me 3 different answers:
-Keep doing what I’m doing, but drop the walking, change the style of HIIT and throw in a run once in a while
-Run longer distances
-Switch to 400s
I should have stated that this isn’t some new-years-resolution-lose-10-pounds sort of fat loss… I’ve been cutting for the last 4 months, so my carbs are pretty low.
I do think the biking has been fine, but I have become better and wouldn’t mind something more intense.
While I do plan on working up to longer distances, I don’t think it would be prudent w/ my knee to do this out of the gate, given my goals of fat loss.
400s sound like they might be a good middle ground, though I’ve had “technical” trouble in the past regarding pacing and such.
In the mean time, I have begun transitioning my HIIT to 4 bike sprints and 3 runs like mentioned in my original post. It sounds like I could do 400s for these instead of sprints, and eventually do 6 x 400 for my HIIT… though, I don’t know if you consider 400s HIIT.
Ha! Of course, ask 3 different lifters and they will inevitably give you 3 completely different routines! Many ways to skin a cat, I guess. That said, I am in agreement with the 400s being an incredible form of conditioning work. I often do that myself as a HIIT workout. If done properly, these will KILL you! I would recommend starting with only 4. Make sure you record your times on each one, and strive to lower the total times of the sprints from workout to workout. Start out relatively easy on Day 1; more than likely you are going to crash by the 3rd or 4th one.
Once you get to the point that you are able to really “sprint” all 4 of them, then consider adding a 5th or 6th. Also consider doing other distances to provide a different stimulus. Something like 6-8 200s is a great conditioning workout, as well as 10 100s. The key is that you are really busting your butt on each one. I like doing active rest in between each of these, so basically walking for as long you need to recover. (for 400s, that usually means about 2-3 minutes, for 200s 90 seconds-2 minutes, and for 100s, 90 seconds usually works). What’s great is that none of these workouts, after warm-ups, should take more than 20-30 minutes. Best of luck, and just be sure that your knee is ready for this sort of stuff.
What’s your reason for doing all this conditioning? Conditioning or fat loss?
I know this goes against the grain, but I believe that most people overestimate the extent to which interval training contributes to fat loss assuming you already lift. In my experience, it has little or no discernible impact on body composition beyond what hard lifting offers. And while it does have a definite conditioning effect, you don’t need to do very much of it to get the full benefit; my experience is that one balls to the wall interval workout per week (either 3 x 300m or 4 x 200m sprints with approximate 1:8 work/rest ratio) gets me as fit as I can get as measured by my times on the track, and anything beyond that is just indulgence that leads to no additional body composition or fitness benefit.
It seems that you’re introducing too many goals at once with the mile thing in addition to what you’re already doing. You can’t do it all. Running the mile will bring down your mile time, but what importance does that hold to you? The short intervals that you are already doing will produce a broad conditioning effect and bring down your mile time. If you want a yet even broader conditioning effect, alternate short intervals one week and an all-out mile effort the next, or average the distances out by running 800m intervals. If you want to focus on your mile time, devote specific blocks of time to training for that and cut out the other stuff during that period.
you’re lucky you arnt injured… while rehabbing a knee, you do HIIT??? build a bit of a foundation ( ez riding ) for at least a month or two first before you start going all out on intervals. get the muscles you’ll be stressing use to the HIIT load by the foundation work…if you are doing the HIIT the proper way, i’m suprised you didnt pull a muscle or two doing the HIIT training…
As a competitive cyclist for a long ass time now, here is my take on knee issues and one possible way to help correct them:
Most cyclists as many are aware have overdeveloped their Vastus Med, Rectus Femoris and Vastus Lat while having very poorly developed Hamstrings.
This places additional stress on the knee and Petellar ligament. We tend to forget what is behind us (like our history!) and that is why you have so many little douchebags with breasts and biceps, without a Back to be seen !
Anyway, one correction that I advise cyclists to do (being most dont have a GHR) is to find a Hill of 3-5% grade of modest length. Keeping your cadance up above 85rpm, take a foot off of or out of the pedal and Pedal one legged for 30-60 seconds, spin with both for a 1 minute period and then repeat with the other leg. Do as many “reps” as you can, also try to do this two days a week. It is even possible to do this on a spin bike for those who cannot get outside in the winter.
What you will find is that you will be pushing squares the first few times until you start to really understand what it means to SPIN. You must pull your foot off the bottom portion of the stroke similar to scraping shit of the bottom of your shoe.
By increasing your strength in the Hammies this way you will get the benefit of using more of your legs cycling muscles AND helping to balance out the amount of pressure on your Tibial plateau and patellar ligament.