HIIT Workouts: Is HIIT More Effective Than Steady State Cardio For Weight Loss?
High Intensity Interval Training.
Also known as “HIIT” training, is a very popular form of cardiovascular training that involves alternating between short periods of intense exercise and short recovery periods.
HIIT has become pretty big in recent years, with people singing its praise for being “more effective” or “more beneficial” for weight loss or fat loss.
Typically, this sort of argument is in comparison to lower intensity ‘steady state’ cardio.
Some claim that HIIT burns more calories during and post exercise than steady state cardio…
And that, this means it is a more effective form of cardio for weight loss or fat loss.
But is it actually?
In this article, I’m going to explore this topic so that you can leave knowing once and for all…
Is HIIT More Effective Than Steady State Cardio For Weight Loss?
As I mentioned at the beginning, HIIT stands for high intensity interval training.
What this means is, in a HIIT workout, you are alternating between periods of high intensity short duration exercise and periods of rest.
For example, you do an intense workout like burpees for let’s say 30 seconds.
And then you rest for a minute.
Repeat this cycle either with the same movement or sometimes different movements interspersed for anywhere from 5 - 20 minutes.
The idea with HIIT training is that you are going all out, ‘balls to the wall’ if you will, during your work periods.
And by doing this, you are spiking your heart rate, then letting it come back down during the rest periods.
The argument (made by proponents of HIIT) is that by doing this, you are…
burning more calories during exercise
burning more calories post exercise
achieving better weight loss/fat loss results
Let’s hone in the ‘burning more calories post exercise’ component here.
Because, while I’ve heard the other two arguments before, that is one of the more popular arguments for HIIT training.
Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) is the scientific term for the ‘afterburn effect’ or burning more calories post exercise.
Lyle McDonald (a fitness author and trainer who I have a lot of respect for) wrote an article and conducted his own research study on HIIT training and its’ effects on EPOC.
He found, through multiple calculations that I won't bore you with the details of, that HIIT netted a 7% increase in EPOC compared to its’ steady state counterpart.
And while 7% might sound like a decent bit, when converted to calories burned, this translated to 14 calories.
So at the same duration and the same exercise, HIIT (interval training) burned an extra 14 calories due to the ‘afterburn effect’ when compared to steady state cardio.
FOURTEEN CALORIES!!
And also, this was comparing the two at the SAME duration.
The whole argument behind HIIT training or interval training in general is that it is a shorter duration form of cardio.
So at shorter durations, say 30 minutes of steady state cardio vs 15 minutes of HIIT, the differences are even less staggering.
To give you an even better idea of the math, here is the exact data with the ‘afterburn’ included (7% for steady state and 14% for HIIT).
We’re gonna assume 100 calories burned for every 10 minutes of exercise in this example.
15 min HIIT - 150 calories + 14% (afterburn/EPOC) = 171 calories
30 min steady state - 300 calories + 7% (afterburn/EPOC) = 321 calories
That math pretty much speaks for itself.
So even when comparing both modalities at the same duration, the difference in calorie burn is minimal.
But when compared at different durations, which is much more realistic given the fact that HIIT is inherently a shorter duration form of exercise, steady state cardio actually burns MORE calories.
And, if you look at the numbers above…
The difference is substantial.
30 minutes of steady state cardio nets 321 calories burned.
While 15 minutes of HIIT training nets 171 calories burned.
Now, while calorie burn is important when we’re looking at cardio, it isn’t the only means for comparing HIIT vs steady state cardio.
It’s also important to look at risk of injury, and overall stress on the body (muscle and joint stress).
While cardio is an important pillar of exercise and fitness, it isn’t the ONLY pillar.
Strength training is also extremely important to be doing on a consistent basis, as is managing your nutrition.
And cardio training certainly isn’t the only pillar in life for most people.
Most of us have jobs that we need to be physically able to perform, and families that we need to be physically able to take care of.
Basically my point to all of that is, everybody wants to feel good…
And nobody wants to be injured, hurting, or sore all the time.
So let’s compare HIIT vs steady state cardio from an injury risk/stress on the body perspective.
HIIT is inherently a very stressful cardio modality.
The fact that during work periods you are supposed to go all out for a short duration of time, inherently makes it a higher injury risk/higher stress training modality.
Training at that type of intensity at any level of consistency carries with it a higher risk of injury and a higher level of soreness.
And, over time, more and more stress on your joints (and your entire body).
Now I’m not saying all stress is bad, resistance training is in essence stressful too, but resistance training can be done at an overall lower intensity and carries a lower injury risk.
On top of that, the risk to reward is MUCH better for resistance training (I just spent the general majority of this article establishing that the ‘reward’ for HIIT is not great).
Let’s move on to steady state cardio instead.
Steady state cardio has very low levels of stress on the body typically, and carries with it a very low risk of injury.
Most people, with the exception of boredom maybe, are pretty confident that they could walk for 30 minutes a day without feeling like shit.
And this means A LOT.
The whole point of exercise and fitness in general is to…
feel better, not worse
reduce injury risk, not increase it
So from the injury risk/stress on the body standpoint, steady state cardio takes the cake again.
Now, let me clarify.
I am not saying that you should NEVER do HIIT training.
And I’m not saying that there’s no benefit to it.
Training at higher intensities is beneficial for some populations on occasion.
However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my goal was to answer the question…
Is HIIT Training More Effective for Weight Loss?
And, due to the reasons that I outlined above, the answer is a resounding no.
The risks of HIIT consistently outweigh the rewards for many people (but not necessarily ALL people).
And, solely from a calorie burn perspective, HIIT is not as effective as steady state cardio.
So HIIT training is NOT more effective for weight loss.
Thanks so much for reading! I hope this helps you and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out.
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And here is the link to the Lyle McDonald article that I referenced!
https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/ss-vs-hiit-epoc-application
