Steady State vs Interval Training

[knoted]

Seeing as there are constantly questions asking about doing extra cardio simply for fat loss, and answers recommendeding HIIT constantly, I thought I might post this.

This is a blog series by Lyle McDonald recently. His website, Body Recomposition, is one of the best resources around. He is very big on basing his conclusions on scientific studies.

Steady State vs. Interval Training is a lengthy series that goes into a lot of detail about the issue. The link is to the summary of the series with links to all the previous parts. I encourage anyone who is thinking of doing some sort of exercise on top of strength training, especially if your goal is fat loss.

A few interesting quotes, from various articles in that series...

Basically, beginners need to break in to aerobic training the way they break into any kind of training: slowly and gradually. Someone completely out of shape simply has no business working at the kinds of intensities demanded by interval training. The risk of injury is too high, the benefits too small. Even the original interval study (by Tremblay) had a 4 week break in period prior to beginning the intervals.

In reference to intermediates...

Local overtraining (of the legs) is a very real issue when you try to add interval training to a heavy leg training schedule. Someone who is trying to train legs twice (or more) per week and who adds intervals to that load can quickly run into problems. This applies to bodybuilders, powerlifters, and any other athlete who has to develop multiple capacities at once. There are a couple of solutions. This is why I didn’t include intervals in the Ultimate Diet 2.0; it already included 3-4 lower body workouts/week. Adding intervals would have just made overtraining a near guarantee.

Remember you are smashing your legs doing Stronglifts 5x5 Beginner, squatting three times per week.

Excess Post-Exercise Calorie (EPOC) burn...

...The reason of course is that the interval workout is alternating between very high caloric expenditures and very low expenditures such that the average expenditure still ends up coming out about the same. That is, say I do 1 minute intervals with 1 minute rest, alternating between 15 cal/min during the hard bit and 5 cal/min during the recovery. That’s an average of 10 cal/min. I can achieve that same 10 cal/min consistently with moderate intensity cardio. The second workout will be far easier to complete.

So, for an equivalent duration workout, the interval workout comes out a whopping 14 calories ahead due to the impact of EPOC. That will net me an extra pound of fat loss every 250 days (3500 calories / 14 calories per day = 250 days). Hooray.

And finally...

If the typical high level athlete typically only performs, on average, two very high-intensity days of training per week, what makes the general trainee (seeking fat loss or whatever) think that they can or should do more?

So, for my opinion on the matter. Assuming your goal is first to get strong and second look good naked, and you insist on doing more than strength training, stick to steady state. This just so happens to be exactly what Mehdi recommends if you read the Stronglifts 5x5 Beginner E-Book. I am not against intervals, I do them once per week for the specific benefits they provide. But I count twenty minutes of hill sprints as an entire workout in my program (for a total of 3 lower body sessions per week).

Some tips;

- Keep your focus on strength gains (lift heavy shit)
- You need to rest to get stronger and bigger (intervals are not rest)
- Do flexibility and soft tissue work if you want to do something on off days (or take the dog for a walk)
- If you are worried about how much fat you are carrying around, look to your diet (it's about ten times more important than your exercise)
- If you still insist, low to medium intensity cardio (i.e. the fat burning zone) is something almost everyone can do for long periods and frequently, without much of a recovery liability

Tacking on intervals to SL5x5 will reduce your strength gains through insufficient rest, and will likely result in overtraining.

[aramirez626]

Great information. As a beginner on SL, I am doing HIIT on alternate days for fat loss and since the weight is still low I feel it is not affecting my recovery. I think when my lifts become heavy I will ease up on the HIIT and do SS, and maybe reduce HIIT to one day/week.

[klauitzsex]

When I was near my 5reps max's (on the squats anyway), doing HIIT was just adding pointless insult to injury. It's fun and cool during the first leg of the program but when it gets heavier, your legs feel way to beat, and it catches up with you FAST

[scott]

so in general then, its best to do steady state exercise for losing weight?

I have not long started stronglifts 5x5 and was thinking about HIIT or steady state, and wasn't sure which to go for

[knoted]

If you are a beginner with the goal of losing fat and getting stronger, I'd recommend medium intensity steady state. You can stick to it, it won't break you, and you keep the focus on strength.

Later down the track (probably 6 - 12 months for an untrained beginner), once you have a decent level of strength and fitness from doing a bit of running / riding / whatever, then you can add one day per week of HIIT. There are many benefits to high intensity intervals, but fat loss isn't really one of them.

I think a lot of people call what they do 'High Intensity Intervals' when in reality all they are doing is 'Medium Intensity with Shorter Rest'. I believe that is what has caused the 'HIIT is always best!' attitude you see all over the 'net.

[scott]

thanks

[jpez]

Nice post. I love HIIT but I've found that it doesn't blend with heavy lifting at all. I think the only way to do HIIT is for it to be the basis of your workout, so basically you have to do one or the other from my experience.

[Psilomadman]

I never felt so drained as when I combined HIIT with heavy weight training. It seriously taxes the body.