HIIT
As I've mentioned before, I've been a regular at the gym for a couple of years now. My workouts are primarily HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), which seemed to be unanimously agreed to be the best training method at both the AHS and Nora Gedgaudas’s recent seminar.
HIIT is designed to incorporate bursts of high intensity sprints with recovery intervals. The sprint sections are typically 60 seconds or so, enough to use every last bit of stored energy in the muscles. This is very different to “chronic cardio”, where hours can be spent in the gym mindlessly pounding the treadmill. HIIT improves endurance, fitness, lean muscle mass and oxygen consumption (including after the workout, resulting in fat burning for hours after the workout). Injury from over training is also a lot less likely with HIIT.
During the last two months of so, I've upped the number of HIIT sessions to three and am amazed at the difference in my fitness and strength. I can’t wait to see how much fitter I’ll be in a few months time. Before Paleo I went through phases of chronic cardio and never achieved anything like the results I am enjoying today.
I've been reading lots of differing viewpoints about eating post work-out, and am currently trying the not eating post workout approach. The idea here is that after using up all of your stored energy your body has to use body fat – and as soon as you eat it will stop that process and start using the food as fuel.
I've read how our bodies are capable of so much more than our minds believe. I've therefore been asking a lot of fit people how they deal with the mental aspect to training. There seem to be a few approaches, such as only focusing on the next five reps (instead of the whole set), complete distraction by focusing on music for instance, or focusing on the end goal. I'm going to try a few different approaches myself to see if changing my thinking can enhance my performance.
What kind of workouts do you do? I’d be really interested to hear how you approach the mind aspect of your workouts too.
