Double Belated Party. And What the Heck Is HIIT?

photo by merlijn hoek

Yawn. Oh, sorry, that was rude. It’s just that I’m still a little groggy from doing absolutely nothing at all last night. (Yeah, not sure how that works out but who am I to question the chronically sleepy body this brain came with?) Giant glass of ice water and bowl of oats to the rescue.

And, yeah, coffee would be nice. Ahem, The Man, it would be nice to have a cup of coffee. (See above.) Hello?

Oh whatever.

Remember way back when—yesterday—when I said I’d reveal the truths to my mysterious lies? Well, I lied. (Ha! That’s the beauty of having a blog. You can do whatever you want, like lie about a lying post. Incidentally, you can also post a photo of the crazy bruises you got yesterday from walking into the door twice, but that would just make you look like a total klutz.)

I’m not trying to annoy you—no, really, I’m not. I just figured I’d practice this great storytelling thingy I’m working on called suspense. So I might be failing, but go with me on this one. You can expect a great reveal, or at least a moderately fun one, on Monday.

Before I head out for a double belated family get-together—as in the snow cancelled our pre-Christmas plans as well as our rescheduled post-Christmas plans and we’re now celebrating Christmas, two birthdays, Easter, and Fourth of July just to be safe—I wanted to clear something up.

photo by jimmy harris

You all are naturally some of the most fitness-savvy people in this great country, so this might not come as a shock to you. But you know the acronym HIIT (or HIT depending on how often you hit the “I” key)? Well apparently it doesn’t stand for Heterogeneous Iberian Iguana Transport or Herculean Intelligence Table. Who knew? In case you’re like me and instead of actually looking the darn thing up you let your imagination go crazy wild, I’ll let you in on a secret. HIIT is high-intensity interval training. The people who call it HIT just forgot the intensity part. Give them a break.

The idea is kind of like the lazy man’s workout, which is totally fine with me. Instead of running 30 miles (because aside from Kelly the Quick, who’s that insane? Kidding, Kelly, I’m really just insanely jealous.) you’d do 10 one-minute sprints with a minute break in between. Easy peasy.

My first reaction: That sounds like a load of crap! My second reaction: So, um, when do I start? In reality, I probably won’t do this type of training all the time. But in case you’re interested, Canadian researchers just found in a study that HIIT can improve muscle just as well as longer bouts of exercise. (I kid you not.)

And, of course, there’s a catch. You can’t just go a little faster and count it as HIIT. You have to work so much harder than normal that you think your entire insides are going to explode from under your skin in the form of sweat. (Ew, how did I come up with that? Gross, Tracey.)

Here’s the most interesting quote from the article: “To achieve the study’s equivalent results by endurance training you’d need to complete over 10 hours of continuous moderate bicycling exercise over a two-week period.” Sheesh, that’s a lot of peddling.

Well, I’m heading out. Let’s hope The Man and I can make it to his brother’s before the temperature drops from 50 to 15 and a sudden snowstorm threatens to turn the Mid-Atlantic into a second Antarctica. (And in that case, can you come dig us out?)

What are your weekend plans? Have you ever done HIIT? And if you haven’t guessed the truth in my list of lies, leave a comment for me. It’ll make me feel loved.

In the meantime, have a great weekend folks!