Today I’m unveiling the dark side of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts. You’ll learn the drawbacks of HIIT workouts and why they’re problematic for women over 40. And if you’re looking for a solution, this episode has it: Say hello to Interval Training (IT) workouts, a great workaround that’s much more beneficial for your exercise routine and overall health!

First, I share my Cloud 9 experience with HIIT bootcamp classes… and the crash and burn that followed. I provide examples of HIIT exercise classes, who benefits from them, and share four major issues with HIIT. Then, I explain why IT allows you to reap all the rewards — without any of the problems — and I provide tips for programming your IT sessions in support of your biology and fitness goals. When it comes to your health and wellness, it is possible to feel great and have energy too! 

 If you are a woman over 40 doing HIIT workouts to get fit and lean fast, but only end up discouraged and exhausted. This episode is for you.

Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!

If you resonated with anything shared in today’s episode, I hope you’ll rate and leave a *glowing* review of the show on Apple Podcasts. Be sure to follow and subscribe to keep up-to-date when new episodes drop on Tuesdays! 

Topics Covered:

• My crash-and-burn experience from a boot camp class 
• Four issues with HIIT training 
• The difference between HIIT and IT 
• Six benefits of Interval Training
• Three tips for programming Interval Training sessions
• How to set your heart rate ranges

Resources Mentioned:

• See the research on ​​overtraining HERE
• See the research on carb and fat utilization HERE
• See the research on cortisol exposure HERE
• See the research on Sprint Interval Training HERE
• Read the article on stress management HERE
• Read the article on the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale HERE

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Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness/

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

Want to know how my over 40 clients are getting stronger, leaner and more energized without HIIT workouts? It's true. The benefits of hit are super intriguing. And there's a reason it's all over the headlines. But there's also a dark side to high intensity workouts. If you're working harder, but getting softer, or find yourself always hungry, and usually exhausted. Keep listening. Because hit, isn't it.

Hello, and welcome to episode eight. I am so glad that you're here. Be sure to listen to the first 10 episodes of this podcast as each is dedicated to the core principles that I teach. And a shout out to Amazon Music for featuring me in their hidden gems collection. Wow, what an honor. My podcast only has a few episodes out. And it's really, really cool that I got featured. So thank you. If you're new here, welcome. I'm Holly Perkins. And after 30 years of practice, a degree in exercise physiology and nutrition and numerous certifications. I've developed strategies to help you use strength training and intentional nutrition to create the body that you need to keep up with this life that you love.

If you're paying attention to the headlines and doing HIIT workouts in order to get fit, and lean fast, but you find they are only getting soft and exhausted. This episode is so for you. If you also notice that you're hungry and craving carbs on the days that you train, so much so that you can't stay on track with your intended diet. Stay with me, because after this episode, you'll walk away knowing what HIIT workouts are and why they're problematic for women over 40. Why high intensity workouts cause hunger and food cravings, how interval training is different and the benefits that you'll get.

And my recommendations for effective interval training that makes you feel great instead of depleted. Because here's the thing. As you get older, the intensity of your workouts should become gentler, so as to reduce cortisol and inflammation. The best kept secret around is that more is not better, better is better. Most of the time my clients start seeing results when I reduce the overall intensity of their cardio workouts. If your goal is to feel awesome, and have the energy that you need to get through the day, I encourage you to swap your hit for it interval training. Wouldn't it be nice to enjoy food without too much hunger and never feel hijacked by food cravings that are derailing your progress.

Of course, once you understand how hard you should be working in your interval cardio workouts, you'll see that less is often more for women over 40. So let's get into why hit isn't it and what you should do instead. Many years ago, one of my favorite clients begged me to go with her to a popular bootcamp class here in LA. And they're they pride themselves on being the hardest workout around which by the way, it definitely is. So for several months, I took this class with her and I loved the feeling of getting my butt kicked and really pushing myself 100% Like I thrived on it.

And I really really loved the exhilaration if you will that I got after those classes. I would give it my all during that class. And for a few hours afterwards, I would feel great. I was on cloud nine. But then I would crash and burn hard in the hours after I would be so tired and so starved, particularly drawn to pretty much carbs of any kind whether it was like pasta, carbs or crackers or sugar and these symptoms the fatigue and the hunger and the cravings would last for several days. After a while I noticed that I was actually getting fatter

I wasn't getting fitter. It was as if I was worse off as a result of these hard workouts. So one day I had an epiphany. And I was like, I realized that the workout wasn't actually improving my fitness, it was actually making me worse in many ways. Every time I would go to class, I wasn't stronger, or faster or more energized, it was always just the same hard class, every single time that I went, I wasn't getting better.

And that began my education in the body's stress response to exercise, and the hormonal repercussions that come from tough workouts which cause elevated cortisol, inflammation and unstable blood sugar. It was during this time that I started seeing way more results for myself and my clients, when I scaled back on high intensity workouts, and just started getting smart about heart rate training. So let's get into how hit, isn't it and how to structure your metabolic conditioning workout so that you become better, not bitter, because boy, nothing is more maddening than when you're working hard week after week, but you're not getting the results that you want.

Right? First, it's important to understand exactly what hit is because there's tons of confusion. So hit H i T stands for High intensity interval training, and usually refers to cardio specific activities like running and spinning or sprinting. But it can also be things like bootcamp classes, the benefits hinge on performing very high intensity intervals for short segments of time, where your heart rate reaches 90% of your maximal heart rate or higher. So a good example of this is, let's say, a spinning class where you might spin at a moderate pace in the saddle for a few minutes.

And then you turn up the resistance, you stand and you push as hard as you can for maybe 20 or 60 seconds somewhere usually between 20 to 60 seconds. Or you could do something like jogging and sprinting intervals, where you jog for a few minutes, and then you sprint all out 100% for 20 or 30 or 40 seconds. The benefits of this depend on hitting near to your maximal heart rate for brief intervals. These days, people refer to it as metabolic conditioning. The research paints a very attractive picture in terms of the benefits of these types of workouts. Without a doubt there are benefits to well designed HIIT workouts.

The biggest reasons why most people are drawn to them are enhanced calorie burning the production of human growth hormone which is like the elixir of youth, and faster fitness development. Basically, you get more bang for your buck in a short amount of time. Hit works great for men, largely because of their testosterone. It also works great for younger people who are more hormonally Healthy People are drawn to it as a magical pill to get fast results in less time.

And without a doubt it absolutely has benefits when it's done under the right circumstances. But here's the catch. Those circumstances are super specific, and there are some real drawbacks to high intensity training. One study showed that people who do hit workouts three times a week for six weeks did not improve their blood pressure or their body fat as much as people who exercised far more moderately five times a week. When you compare apples to apples. The benefits of hit are a lot less impressive. I've included several links below to some great research if you want to get into the nitty gritty science of it. There are several issues with HIIT training that

In my experience, lead to big problems and some of those considerations are, number one, high intensity workouts trigger a stress response in your body, that then increases the production of cortisol. Cortisol itself isn't a problem. chronically elevated cortisol is the issue. The Mayo Clinic states that consistently high levels of cortisol in the body can lead to health problems including anxiety, depression, digestive issues, sleep problems and weight gain. And according to a 2017 study, chronic cortisol exposure may even be associated with obesity over time.

Cortisol impairs insulin sensitivity, and leads to dangerous belly fat. Cortisol messes with your blood sugar levels, which can leave you feeling unstable weepy, emotional, and hangry. It's widely agreed that it's important to take actions to keep your cortisol within healthy levels, naturally rising in the morning and naturally declining in the evening. The second issue with hit training is that it compounds the inflammation that occurs as estrogen declines in your 40s and early 50s. And it happens simply from the aging process. This is big, because if your hit workouts aren't right, you get a triple whammy of inflammation. That's the result of number one, the workout number two, estrogen decline. And number three, the aging process in and of itself.

The third issue with HIIT training is that as your heart rate increases, your muscles demand more carbohydrate in the form of glucose to fuel your muscles in your workout. This usually means some degree of Carb Depletion in your blood, muscles and or liver. But see your blood muscles and liver all require that carbohydrate that you just used up in your workout. This means that you must replace that carbohydrate through your diet.

And if you don't get this right, which most women don't, you'll get sucker punched with hunger and cravings. Your body's sneaky and sophisticated way of ensuring that your organs get what they need to keep you alive. This is homeostasis, the complex systems that are at play that ensure your survival.

The fourth problem with HIIT workouts is that high intensity workouts generally demand more recovery. And most of the women that I know are really good at recovery in general, some of that behavioral Some of that's biological as a function of your age. And some of us just don't recover well in general. Additionally, recovery slows as you get older.

If your hit workouts are too long, too intense or too frequent, there's a good chance that you'll start to experience symptoms related to overreaching, which is the metabolic condition that happens just before the true state of overtraining, which is a very real thing. Overtraining, real overtraining doesn't happen as frequently as we use it in like common vernacular. Really what happens for most people is the stage of overreaching, where your body is just struggling to recover. And the symptoms might be subtle or moderate, that you don't listen to them.

And if you're highly motivated, to train hard or eat less, it really creates a complex scenario. The thing to keep in mind is that if you're someone who already struggles to feel well, or suffers from fatigue, workouts that are too intense, tend to push you over the tipping point and to where they are more problematic than they're actually worth. Long story longer here. I often say that HIIT type workouts are great on paper, and that's what we see in the research. But in the real world, the biological fallout from them overrides the supposed benefits.

I have a workaround to hit training so that you can reap some of those benefits without any of the problems, we'll get into that next, but first, so I'm just not a fan of HIIT workouts. But I do love the use of interval training in general, it's helpful to understand that hit isn't it, meaning High Intensity Interval Training H i T is different from interval training, I T, same concept, but different application, the difference between hit and it is one, the length of the workout interval, and to how high your heart rate gets during each interval. In general, the higher your heart rate for any given activity, the shorter the duration of the segment, because you burn out quickly when your heart rate is high.

With interval training, we lower the overall intensity so that you can do slightly longer segments. And because your overall intensity is lower, you can also have longer sessions, where a true hit session would only be 20 to 25 minutes, an interval session can be 25 to 35 minutes. The biggest mistake people make is that they blindly push hard to hit their perceived maximum without any real heart rate, strategy or observation. There's this idea that if you work out hard, like super fit people do, you too will become super fit. But it doesn't work that way. It's a progression. In either case, hit or it it's important to map out targeted heart rate zones, so that you can ensure effectiveness without the drawbacks.

The benefits of interval training are improved fitness and overall conditioning, a reduction of blood pressure values enhanced cardiovascular health, ie This is the heart health that you hear about frequently. Improved stamina, it boosts calorie burn after workouts This is known as epoch, excess post exercise oxygen consumption. This is the amount of calories that you burn beyond your workout in the hours after the workout. And the last benefit of interval training is that it really helps to improve mood and self esteem. Those are big.

Now that we've covered the problems with hit the benefits of interval training and the difference between the two, let's go over how to incorporate interval training into your weekly workouts so that you get the benefits without the unproductive side effects. But before that, one thing I want to say is that it's also important to include some steady state cardio workouts in your week as well. In fact, moderate intensity steady state cardio really should be the bulk of your cardio each week. steady state cardio has its own benefits, which are completely different from interval workouts. That's one of the reasons why I'm such a huge fan of them.

That being said, I generally suggest to interval workouts each week, depending on the nuances of your biology and your goals. For example, I really struggle with any kind of intensity in my workouts, and I find that intensity just causes too much inflammation. Therefore, I don't do much interval work except for brief bouts here in there when I'm super fit. And I get those benefits of interval training from the interval nature of my strength workouts. More on that for a different episode. But if you don't have any extenuating health issues to enter workouts each week is a great place to start. There are three things to keep in mind when programming your interval sessions. The first is frequency, aim for one to two sessions per week max for the first six weeks.

After that you can increase to two or three if you're getting good results. But I don't recommend going more than three. If you're actually doing it properly. If you're not doing it properly, you could probably get away with more than three but if you're really doing it right three at a max once your body has adapted. The second thing is the length of each session and I suggest aiming for 25 to 30 minutes to start for the first four to six weeks, then increasing up to

35 minutes max per session. More than that tends to be too catabolic for most women in their 40s. And above. After a five minute warmup, you'll alternate between effortful hard intervals and recovery intervals. And I like a one to one ratio where you do one minute of hard work to one minute of rest or recovery, or two minutes of work to two minutes of rest and recovery. The third and probably most important consideration is your targeted heart rate range for workouts. This is where it gets a bit tricky.

This is why I saved it for last. In my experience, I see great variability in terms of people's heart rate response to exercise, especially with women, especially if you have thyroid issues. It's way more complicated than people think, especially for women. There are two ways to program your heart rate ranges, number one, by calculating your theoretical maximum heart rate, and then targeting a percentage of that number. And or two, by using a ratings of perceived exertion scale, where you don't worry about numbers at all, and you just focus on your overall sense of effort during the workout. Now, I always do a full calculation for myself and for my clients.

Because I believe getting as scientific as possible is always good. I love the numbers for really getting your cardio right. But as I said, it's a bit complicated, especially if you're not exactly sure of the nuances, and it's way too much for me to get into here on a podcast. Therefore, I'm going to focus on the second way to set your target intensity for workouts using the RPE scale. The industry standard for this is the Borg rating of perceived exertion scale that measures your perceived intensity. On a scale from six to 20. There is a high correlation between how hard you perceive yourself to be working, and your actual heart rate. That being said, I find it easier to use a one to 10 scale, where one represents no physical effort at all.

A one would be like laying on your couch watching TV, and a 10 on the RPE scale represents what you imagine is the hardest effort possible. Say if I showed up at your house and pulled you off of your couch and made you go outside and sprint as fast as possible for two miles. That would be a 10. At any given moment during a workout, you can make a quick summation of how you feel how hard you're working. It's a quick assessment, and then you select a number from one to 10. You don't want to overthink it and you want to take into consideration everything that you're feeling in the workout between your breathing your energy, how springy your legs feel, how much you're sweating, pretty much everything you just take a quick snap decision and select your intensity on this imaginary scale from one to 10.

For interval training workouts, I like my clients to be working hard enough that they rate their effort level as an eight, up to a nine, but never going over a nine on that scale. When done correctly, this represents about 80 to 90% of your maximal ability exactly where we want you for effective interval workouts. The key here is to never hit 10. That is where the trouble starts. By approaching your cardio intervals. This way, you're way more likely to get the benefits without the annoying and problematic symptoms of overtraining. While I do believe there is a time and a place for proper HIIT training, its way less and practical application and in general.

I just find it's way too tricky for most people to self manage. If you struggle with energy issues, please know that I am right there with your sister. It's really important to fine tune these ideas to fit your body. It is possible to feel well and have great energy for life, if you're not experiencing that right now, just know you're not alone, and that you're a work in progress. Focus on taking one step today that moves you in the right direction, the direction that you want to go, so that you're closer to where you want to be tomorrow. Your actions today dictate your reality tomorrow.

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If so, I would truly love to hear from you. Your feedback helps me to know if I'm creating information that's actually helpful for you or if I should go in another direction. So please take a moment to rate and review this episode right now. Wherever you're listening, look down.

And if you want access to my four week strength without stress program for free, be sure to rate and review this episode right now. Grab a screenshot and then you can send it to me over at Holly perkins.com forward slash review and you'll get immediate lifetime access to strength without stress for free. Stay tuned for another brand new episode on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong my friend.