10 Good Reasons Your PT Workouts Need HIIT

Is your client seeking fast results? Are they limited on time or by a restricted budget? Perhaps they’ve reached a training plateau? Sound familiar? Far from a gimmick or fad high-intensity interval training offers a lot of bang for your buck and is something we’d advocate all personal trainers have tucked up their sleeve in their exercise repertoire. Why’s that? Check out our top 10 reasons below.

1 – Kill those calories

Intense short bursts of high activity followed by quick rests will boost client calorific expenditure both during and post workout. Great examples here are intense 30 second sprints, walking lunges with twist and Swiss ball jack knife.

2 – Target new muscle zones

Your client’s body continually adjusts to its training and comes to know what to expect. Adding in HIIT gives a ‘surprise’ element targeting new muscles that simply won’t be reached by the same old training routine.

3 – Maximise muscle tone

Muscles aren’t solitary they work in pairs and groups. So for maximum muscle tone you need to prescribe exercises that will integrate multiple muscle groups rather than just concentrate on the major muscles alone.

4 – Time efficient training

We all lead busy lives. For those times when your client is running late, needs to leave early or thinks best to skip the session, respond with some big win HIIT training and max out their returns from the time available.

5 – Farewell to fat

Through intense multiple muscle group usage HIIT burns fat far better than cardio alone, building a better body shape with improved muscle definition. And the more muscle the better your clients fat burning power house.

6 – The Power of Motivation

We all like to do things well and reach personal goals and milestones. Seeing their training progress to a new level is a great compliment to your client’s progress, a huge driver of self-motivation.

7 – Keep things fresh

Whilst the human body needs exercise to be continually adapted for optimum results, us humans by our very nature are creatures of habit. We settle nicely into routines and patterns and generally speaking we’re not crying out for change. Therein lies the dilemma for Personal Trainers when it comes to program design. By partitioning 10-20 minutes of your session on some new HIIT exercises you strike a perfect balance and have some great client feedback to consider for next time.

8 – Anytime, anywhere

No fancy gadgets or kit required. In its simplest form HIIT techniques use human body weight alone.

9 – Budget friendly

Potential PT clients work to differing budgets. If an hour of training is out of reach, 20 or 30 minutes HIIT offers a cost effective results orientated alternative.

10 – Accelerated performance zone

Whether it’s to run quicker, swim further, feel fitter, lose more body fat or something else HIIT can help accelerate your client’s performance. Incorporated into a diverse training plan it has a great deal to offer fitness newbies, amateurs and budding professionals alike.

As with all things personal training one size never fits all. We’d always suggest that you seek an updated clients health status questionnaire, check for normal blood pressure and fact find for any underlying medical issues or changes to medical history before pushing the pace the HIIT way. If in doubt stick to the normal training routine until your clients sought and obtained medical clearance to your satisfaction.

T – 0845 270 1990

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