So you’ve added enough muscle to your body to where you are happy with how your muscles look, but you still have that extra layer or “padding”. Everytime you check yourself out in the mirror you see it. That little bit of excess body fat that has accumulated because of having to eat more food on your muscle building quest.
Your first thought is that you are going to have to spend hour upon hour on the treadmill torturing yourself to burn that extra layer and reveal your new physique. The good news is that you don’t have to do this! You can do high intensity interval training instead!
What Is High Intensity Interval Training?
(HIIT) High Intensity Interval Training is a little known way to burn more calories in less time. Instead of your normal cardio routine where you most likely spend an hour on the treadmill at 6 mph and burn the same amount of calories each time, this is different.
High Intensity Interval Training is all doing cardio at such a high level of intensity that your body will spend the rest of your day expending energy to recover from the workout you did during the day. This is known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption(EPOC) and it means that you consume a greater deal more oxygen recovering from the exercise than you would have if you’d just done a steady-state workout.
What does this mean to you?
You’ll be burning up to nine times more fat while you are sitting on the couch later that night than you would have if you’d spent an hour on the treadmill at a moderate pace.
This obviously means that you’re going to need to bust your ass during these workouts. You’re going to need to push yourself outside of your normal comfort zone for these workouts. You’ll really need to challenge yourself. If you are willing to do this for your workouts and try something new, you’re going to only spend half the time you usually do on those cardio machines and you’ll get much leaner in the process.
How can it help me get abs like Ryan Reynolds?
HIIT training has a number of benefits in addition to saving you time with training.
First things first. This type of training is far superior to steady-state exercises when it comes to increasing your VO2 max, which is the maximum amount of oxygen that your body can uptake during exercise. This is going to affect all aspects of your life, including putting you in better shape for basketball with the guys.
You probably weren’t aware that during moderate-intensity exercise, you are more likely to put yourself into a catabolic state in which you will start losing muscle mass. A catabolic state is not good for your muscles and you want to avoid it at all costs. You worked hard for that muscle and want to keep it, right?
The reason for this is that you have two types of muscle fibers in your body; fast twitch and slow switch.
Slow twitch muscle fibers are good if you are training for marathons and endurance type trainings, while fast twitch muscle fibers are more compatible with short, intense bouts of exercise like weight lifting or sprinting. The fast twitch muscles will also help you with getting better at sports.
When you train with high intensity interval training, our muscle tissue has a tendency to take on the appropriate properties.
Compare the body types of a marathon runner vs a sprinter. What kind of body type are you going after? Ryan Reynolds has more of a body like a sprinter and if that’s what you are looking to achieve, HIIT is the way to do it.
If you want to learn more information about getting abs like Ryan Reynolds, you can learn more from the Visual Impact Muscle Building course by clicking the video below.
