Hey everyone! Today, Frank discusses HIIT or High-Intensity Interval Training. This type of exercise can be a huge fat-burning boost and may be the key ingredient in your weight loss protocol. Check it out!
Here are the show notes for today's podcast:
Frank:
00:00 Hey everyone and welcome to unconventional wellness radio is powerful and inspiring podcast set to revolutionize and disrupt healthcare. It's trying to put you in the driver's seat. That'd be the force of change necessary for the lifestyle you've always wanted. Hey everyone, frank here and didn't. We're going to switch things up a little bit on our unconventional wellness radio podcast and the reason why is because I want to bring you some great content in reference to all the things that unconventional one list represents. And so I wanted to speak today toward some of the exercise that I want to talk about in this program. Now, we've talked about a couple of diets and previous podcasts. If you haven't seen those, please check those out. You know, they're uh, probably episode while the last episode was on intermittent fasting. And then we've done a couple of episodes on other nutritional concepts.
Frank:
00:55 And so the purpose of unconventional, unconventional wellness is to actually speak toward what I'm referring to as the core for the core, for our pillars of good wellness that everybody should be able to follow in order to achieve their optimal health. And it starts with food. Everything always starts with food, and we've talked about nutrition as I've said, but we're also going to talk in a functional movement, different ways of working out and what that's all about. And then we're going to talk about how to get better sleep. We're going to talk about how to remove stress and we're definitely going to talk about how to detoxify your life. And so through those four things, I myself am a combat veteran. I'm service disabled, meaning that a sustained injuries while I was on active duty with the army and I've had to figure out ways with my wife in order to be able to live in an unconventional way.
Frank:
01:49 Speaking of what does that even mean? They actually live in an unconventional way. Well, yeah, as you may or may not understand, the, uh, the United States is very, very expensive when it comes to healthcare. We end up spending about $2,000,000,000,000 a year on healthcare. And the vast majority of Americans, about 80 percent of them actually fall under a situation where they have at least one chronic illness. Now, the downside is not only is it expensive, but a lot of people are just unaware that they can handle a lot of their health care every single day with the choices that they make. Now, the choices that we need to make are obviously ones that are going to be small pieces to an otherwise big puzzle, and it absolutely is required that we continue to understand that this is a journey. This is a marathon. This is not something that there is a magic bullet that will allow you to really be able to have immediate results tomorrow.
Frank:
02:53 This is something that requires effort. This is something that requires determination. It's something that absolutely requires goal setting because we want to be able to hit milestones, uh, in order to be able to understand where we were, we have been in, and then of course, where have we come from and then where are we at? And so the, the idea of unconventional wellness is that we want to look at it as this really large puzzle. It's all fragmented and there's lots and lots of pieces and it requires us to look at the different ways that we can help create the lifestyle that we have always desired. All of these pieces are different things that we can do. These are different choices that we make every single day. These are the nutritional choices that we make. These are the exercises or functional movement choices that we make these or how do we get better sleep, so all of these pieces play into this large puzzle of you and so what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about one of these pieces.
Frank:
03:53 It's a small piece, but it's still a very important one and that is the concept of functional movement. Now I wanted to talk about one particular type of exercise that is very popular today and it actually has research that backs it as a great way to lose weight. Now I've losing weight as your overall goal. That's not a bad goal to have, but why not be able to lose weight using great sleep and great nutrition as well. Now, before I even talk about this exercise style, if you will, I want to talk about a disclaimer and that disclaimer is that anything that we talk about on this podcast, if you're willing to and able to try to work toward this, we have got to make sure that we understand that this podcast is educational purposes only. Uh, by all means, if you have any type of a situation that you want to bring up, make sure that you talk to your healthcare provider because all I'll be able to do is give you suggestions and recommendations and things like that.
Frank:
04:53 Under no way can I prescribe anything or tell you exactly what you must do. It has to be informational and it has to be that you become well educated in order to be able to make the decisions that are going to benefit your lifestyle. So anyway, now that we got that all behind us, let's go ahead and talk about what I set out to do, which was let's talk about what is known as hit training or h I, I t training. It stands for high intensity interval training. It actually was the top fitness goal or fitness trend that was googled for and everything like that. It's actually kind of really cool. You can actually google actually the word Google analytics are the two words, google analytics and what that'll allow you to do is that will actually allow you to go and like search for different ways that you can find out what people are actually googling, if you will, you know.
Frank:
05:51 So it's between that and a google trends is another good one too. You can actually see what people are specifically typing. So if I type like hit h I it in a google trends, I'm doing that actually currently you will see that the interest over time it ends up getting roughly. That peaked a little bit. I have a feeling that there'll probably peak again, but it's steadily gets anywhere between say 50 and 100 looks per week, if you will, on average per day. Uh, so it really is a very, very good topic that people are 100 percent I'm searching for now. If I was to expand that out into high interval intensity training, same thing. We're actually getting a lot of pretty good response throughout the year so people are still definitely talking about it in a couple places, have actually said that it is the number one health topic, uh, in, in, in many surveys and things like that.
Frank:
06:47 Now the American Academy of Sports Medicine, which is one of the highlighted very good certifying bodies for different types of workouts. They do lots and lots of research and things like that. It says that most hit workouts are designed to be high intensity, short periods of time, and so what does that even mean? Well, most high intensity workouts, if you start them, should be at about 20 to 30 minutes. We're not looking at something that is going to be very, very long. Its purpose is to boost your metabolism. It's purpose is to do functional movement. Most of the time you can actually get away with doing really good high intensity workouts with just simply moving around your body weight alone. I would recommend that a start off using body weight alone. Even if you select some form of a hit workout that you'd like to start doing. Make sure that you start off with bodyweight alone because a lot of your joints and a lot of your different muscle groups and things like that may need some stabilization before you decide to kind of really get at it.
Frank:
07:52 And by all means, if you've never done hit workouts before, totally make sure that you start with something very basic, very beginner, like you know, something that's not going to be crazy. High intensity or something that is going to be a possibly you could get injured. All right, so make sure to just start off with something simple. So like I was saying, that's usually less than 30 minutes to start off with a, but they're designed to be with moments of aggressive exercise alternating with periods of rest. So for example, I may do, you know, say a minute's worth of pushups or maybe 30 seconds worth of pushups and then I would turn around and rest for a minute and then are we getting into my next exercise, which might be something like a bicep curl or a pull up or something like that. And then I would rest again, depending upon the amount of muscle groups that are being used, like there are different types of exercises, one of which is called a burpee, a burpee.
Frank:
08:49 It is absolutely a very high intensity style of um, uh, excuse me, one particular style of exercise that requires you to pretty much do a pushup and then hop up using your feet to your hands in order to get to an upright position. And then you hop in between pushups and so it's a full body, multiple muscle group type of exercise and you know, doing those for a minute can be very, very challenging. And so anyway, the, the purpose of the work phase of a hit workout is that it's supposed to be anywhere between about 20 to 90 seconds. And then you do something low intensity and slash or rest. Okay. So, you know, make sure that you go at it slow. It's a good way to vary your workout. One of the big things that I tell people about is if they are planning on using hit training, realize that it's going to be a lot different than a lot of the training that you may have already done.
Frank:
09:46 A lot of people traditionally when they go to a gym, they will work out two to three times a week and do some form of weight training and then you will turn around and do opposite or alternating days, may be cardiovascular training. Both of those are fairly steady state, meaning that yes, you might have some periods of work when you're, say lifting or something like that. But usually most folks will read a couple of minutes in between those sets in order to be able to bring down their heart rate and be able to, uh, you know, to, to perform another set in, in the time that it takes in between your sets of rest. So here, training is designed though where you are supposed to be working out and staying in tents. The vast majority of the time really just the period of rest is just to give you just enough time to be able to take on the next, uh, you know, exercise that is inside of that particular program or that particular exercise that you are doing.
Frank:
10:47 Okay. So really what we're looking at is a, it is, we want to start off with something that is going to be probably more so intense in the sense of using large muscle groups, but using what we call multi-joint movements. Okay. You can start off with something simple like, you know, you can do a cycling, you can do interval hit training on a cycle, you can do it on stairs, you can even do it with a jump rope, you know, any things like that. And so really what it ends up being is there are so many different types of hit workouts that you could do. Ones I've seen with sledge, you know the ones where you put the weights on a sled if you will, and you push that for a certain distance and then you rest and then you get ready and then you push it for another distance and stuff like that.
Frank:
11:37 Okay. A couple of things that you want to keep in mind with hit training though is like there should be a period of warming up, a absolutely warm up. The joints absolutely warm up your body, get yourself cardiovascularly ready. And what I recommend is that you either do maybe about three to five minutes of walking on a treadmill or maybe grab one of the ellipticals and do a three to five minutes, very low intensity, maybe level one, level two just to get the heart rate going and everything like that. Uh, in order for the body to warm up. And then that's when you actually stretch. I would actually say that a lot of my physical therapy friends have very much made me a believer and doing a warm warm up and a warm stretching routines. You know, it can actually be aware if you do your stretches before you actually warm up, you're trying to stretch cold muscles in those cold muscles are suspect for injury.
Frank:
12:32 Muscles do very well when they're already warm when it comes to stretching because you're facilitating blood flow and oxygenation of those tissues to, to, uh, really be able to benefit from a stretch. So, and a dynamic stretching is a little bit different than static stretching. Static stretching is where you're going to go ahead and, uh, move yourself into a stretch and then sort of hold that stretch for say 15 to 20 seconds. Dynamic stretching is where you're kind of moving at the same time that you're stretching. And so you might have to google something like that. But that's the type of way that I like to warm up is I like to do sort of like dynamic movement stretching. I'm not necessarily something where I'm bouncing per se, but something where I'm taking it a little on the easier side and sort of stretching as I'm moving.
Frank:
13:17 And I really enjoy that because it actually makes me feel like I'm really getting a really, really good warmup. Okay. Then you're going to go into your workout. All right? Whatever that choice might be. You may do 20, 25, 30 minutes or something like that. Have a particular workout right where you're alternating between very difficult. It should be like 85, 90 percent a perceived effort, or even your Max heart rate should be 85, 90 percent. And then you should drop down to about 60 percent of your light, a Max heart rate doing either a light work load, or even resting. All right? So you work out in total alternating like that, 20 to maybe 30 minutes. And then you're going to do a cool down and the school down is going to be the same thing. I like to actually make an inactive cooldown. My Act of cooldown will involve either me jumping back onto a treadmill, grabbing a cycle, walking around the gym or something like that in order to be able to actively cooled down and bring my body are, excuse me, bring my heart rate down very gently, uh, over the course of maybe five, 10, even 12 to 15 minutes to be able to do that.
Frank:
14:25 Best things that I like about a hit workout are there fast. And uh, there has been really great results in terms of fat loss strategies and an increase in lean muscle mass using hit training as well. The biggest important thing is, is that if you end up looking at the metabolism for someone who does like a static workout, if you will, like, say just walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes versus somebody who does like some sort of a hit training for the 30 minutes, you end up seeing a much longer duration of their metabolism running very, very high after a hit workout versus cardiovascular workout. It's something that I learned many years ago going through school as a, as I have a bachelors in exercise physiology, is that your body is really fantastic at being able to create steady states. And so for individuals who are doing something like long distance running, yeah, there's a definite increase in their metabolism and their oxygenation and things like that over the course of the first, maybe 15, 20 minutes of running, but then after that you actually steady state out in your body becomes a very, very efficient fat burning machine, uh, after that.
Frank:
15:42 So yes, the cardiovascular training, steady state cardiovascular training will in fact help you lose weight, but hit training shows improvements on your metabolism and hour two hours or even more after your workout is completed. And so that's why I appreciate doing those hit style workouts inside of my actual training is because I ended up knowing that I have that metabolism. The continue on. I've been still slightly sweaty and hour and a half, two hours after I had finished a hit workout. And so I guess the goals are, is to make sure that you are safe with it. And make sure that you talk to your healthcare provider, make sure you do a warmup and a cool down, and then google some different high intensity training programs that you can look into because there are some really great, well-designed, once a. make sure that you sort of pepper them into your workout to begin with.
Frank:
16:35 So don't necessarily jump right into five day. I work five days a week, hit training schedule. I like to actually use hit maybe twice a week, sometimes three times a week, and I make sure that I even alternate the intensity of those. There might be a hit training workout that's super intense that I want to work on my upper body and then there might be one that superintendent I work on my lower body and then I might have a third hit workout that week. That really is more along the lines of like something that's a recovery, a type of workout. That way I can make sure that I continue to keep the joints lubricated, keep everything nice and a relatively discomfort free and try to minimize the amount of soreness that I get, but able to maximize the abilities that I'm able to do to really get those uh, fitness goals that I'm looking for with a hit workout.
Frank:
17:21 So that's it guys. That's pretty much a hit workout and it's down and dirty. Um, I want to ask you that if you, if it's your first time listening to this podcast and you enjoy the material that we're getting on it, please make sure that you hit that subscribe button because we really want to make sure that we get the word out about an living, uh, you know, unconventionally. And so, uh, we will be looking forward to doing these once a week on Mondays. I should be able to stick with that schedule to release a new, a new content. But we're going to talk about the core four. So we're going to talk about nutrition or we're going to talk about functional movement. We're going to talk about how to get better sleep and reduce your stress and then how to detoxify your life, so please make sure you hit that subscribe button, tell friends, share this podcast so we can make sure that we start educating the masses on how to live an unconventional wellness lifestyle.
Frank:
18:14 Until then, I am Frank Ritz and if you would like to check out some other podcast material, we have a really fantastic podcast that is about essential oils, so please make sure that you check out essential oil healthcare radio where we go on there and we talk about different types of essential oils, what they can do for you and all that sort of thing. Just to really live a very, very healthy lifestyle because we will be talking about all the different adjunct things that we do besides the core for a. As this program continues to go along and we want to really make sure that you understand everything that there is to know. That way you can make the choices in your lifestyle to be able to live in a very unconventional way. Until next time, I'm frank, I appreciate your time and I can't wait to see you on our next podcast. Take care and have a great day. Everybody.
