I was an ectomorph. After a coupe of years of weightlifting I have gained some muscle as well as body fat. Now I am planning to lose body fat without sacrificing muscle. Is HIIT suitable for my goal?
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1Hi and welcome to fitness.se! Unfortunately your question is very unspecific and not detailed enough to give a meaningful answer. If you could add more details like your age, current weight(or BF%), target weight (or BF%), former weightlifting routine, planned routine (both weightlifting and HIIT), former and planned nutrition plan and basically everything you can think of that might be relevant gasp that would be great. Other than that, you might find the answer to your question by browsing through this site, as similar questions get asked (and answered) quite a lot.– user8119Commented Jul 15, 2014 at 13:52
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2Also as an FYI, the body classifications of ecto/meso/endomorph have pretty much been debunked.– JohnP ♦Commented Jul 15, 2014 at 14:31
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The HIIT workout is an anaerobic workout, such as weightlifting. I you lift, then just do some low intensity aerobic training for no more than an hour. If you don't lift, you could do HIIT but for no more than 20min. The real fact that will make you mantain or loose muscle is your diet.– masmicCommented Oct 21, 2014 at 10:18
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I think this is a nice article that answers your question simplyshredded.com/…– k88Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 8:42
2 Answers
HIIT isn't really the factor here, I would say your diet is. You need to calculate your TDEE and find out a deficit including the calories burned from HIIT training(which is a lot).
I'm an amateur boxer and do HIIT workouts 4 times a week, 2-hour sessions each. One 2-hour session easily burns 1500 calories if not more. Hard sparring is included in these. In periods where I need to maintain weight, I calculate my TDEE and try to land a break-even on calories on the days I work out(to have energy for it, also), and eat less the days I don't work out(which isn't many.. in fact..) The "puzzle" has to go together on a weekly basis for me, though. In periods where I cut, i have a calorie deficit of around 400 calories per day.
So to conclude - you need to plan your diet after your workout intensity and frequency, and go on a daily calorie deficit that is not too big(because then you WILL lose muscle). Consistency and steady progress is the key.
I think it depends. If you train in the morning without breakfast it's not a good idea to do HIIT. If you train in the evening with a good dinner before it then you can burn many kcals in short time.
Even if you are low in body fat percentage then HIIT is not the right choice because in low bodyfat ranges your body is more likely to burn muscle in hard cardio sessions. Some say you can save your gains by eating a large amount of protein but I don't think that helps a lot.
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1There is a lot of "depends", "I think" and bro-science here. Do you have any references to back up your beliefs?– JohnP ♦Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 3:30