Personal experience with HIIT

This morning for my cardio workout, I took my first shot at doing High Intensity Interval Training, which I talked about in a post a couple of weeks ago. This was one of my regular cardio days, so I got on the treadmill, did a 4-minute warmup, then a full-out run at 8.2 MPH for 30 seconds. I cranked it back down to 3.5 MPH for a minute, then back up to 8.2 for 30 seconds, 1 minute at 3.5, etc. I lost count of how many reps I did, but it must have been six or seven of them. 

Keith Scott’s blog entry says that with the build-up of lactic acid in such a short period, you might have the tendency to feel sick, and guess what? I really did (ugh). But I bullied my way through it, and the feeling went away quickly once I was done. The one drawback I saw about doing it on a treadmill was that it takes a while, about 10-15 seconds, for the machine to ratchet up to 8.2 from 3.5 MPH.  I decided to only count the time from when it actually hit 8.2, and count out my 30 seconds from that point.

I’m planning on trying HIIT for the next couple of weeks for my cardio, and then I’ll get back to my running routine - I need to keep building up to the 5K so I’m ready for the run at my daughter’s school on April 19th.