LISS VERSUS HIIT

Just read an article on which is better for fat loss and thought I’d offer my own thoughts.

Both work. I’m convinced of that. Over the years I’ve had equal success doing each method. But I also think one is better than the other depending on other factors.

Low intensity steady state cardio is far less stressful on your body. Anybody can do it. It works. It burns fat, not muscle. It doesn’t leave you needing to recover. So what’s the downside? It just doesn’t burn off as much calories/fat as an equal amount time wise as high intensity interval training. And it won’t really improve your fitness levels. Does this make it a waste of time? Not in my opinion. It’s an excellent addition to our fitness training. I used to row in excess of 10000 metres every day to lose fat before summer. I broke it into various different lengths. Maybe 5000 to start, followed by 3000 and then a couple of 1500 rows and so on. At the proper intensity you won’t even sweat. So no warm up or cool down or shower afterwards.

And then I started to research what other people write and there really is a load of crap written. I suppose it’s the same for more or less everything. Anyone can read something and then repeat it and even add a bit more bollocks.

The biggest of these garbage theories is that to lose fat we need to burn off calories, therefore the more calories we burn the more fat we lose! No we don’t! We might burn off bodyweight but who wants to do that?

I’ve read calculations comparing the calories burned using liss and hiit and these clever people calculate that over a period of a month, a year, a lifetime etc etc we burn off x amount more calories doing hiit! Yeah great! But it’s not that simple. How much more muscle do you burn performing hiit?

And apparently we adapt to liss which means that in order for it to keep working we have to up the intensity and the length of time we do it!! Really! Walking is just about the best example of liss. We are designed to walk long distances. It’s one of the reasons we don’t burn muscle when we walk. Think about it! What’s the point of walking 50 miles to find a heffalump to eat and then not having the strength to catch it!

And if we did keep upping the intensity then by definition we would end up doing hiit. Do these people who churn out these articles actually think about what they’ve written!

Seriously, the bollocks that modern science thinks it has invented! You can’t change nature and the way we are designed!

Ok, so what about hiit ?

If you want to get super fit then go for it. If you want excellent heart health then do it. If you are capable of training heavy and then doing hiit then you’ll reap the benefits. If you don’t have the time or the idea of doing more monotonous liss doesn’t appeal then go for it. Whether it burns more calories or less or more fat or less probably won’t come into it. In fact, if you can fit in both types then why not?
I loved hiit. You definitely feel like you achieved something when you finish. But if I had to chose one purely for fat loss and muscle preservation it would be liss.