How to determine the appropriate HIIT ?

[Myopic Squirrel]

Seeing the various age & fitness levels of people on here, is there a formula for determining the appropriate HIIT workout? As suggested, I'm using the 80/20 rule of SS & HIIT, & now beginning the HIIT segment. Should my 'state of fitness' (or lack thereof) determine my optimal HIIT workout, or does one just try one of the many options and settles on what feels best? Thank you in advance.

[hjs]

Seeing the various age & fitness levels of people on here, is there a formula for determining the appropriate HIIT workout? As suggested, I'm using the 80/20 rule of SS & HIIT, & now beginning the HIIT segment. Should my 'state of fitness' (or lack thereof) determine my optimal HIIT workout, or does one just try one of the many options and settles on what feels best? Thank you in advance.

Think you got it right with what feels best. HITT should be as hard as possible, how well you recover is a very important aspect.
Start out carefully, and slowly see how you react.

[jurgwhitehouse]

Your 'optimal' HIIT workout will be the one that maximises your time at or above your anaerobic threshold while also being achievable, both physically and psychologically. It's got to be hard work but not so hard that you can't finish it.

Accumulating minutes at 90% of your max heart rate has been shown to have the greatest impact on improving aerobic power and the best way to log those minutes in the red-zone is with intervals. There isn't a formula for the best workout but you could copy some of the more popular sessions such as 4x2k or 5x1500m. I wouldn't try anything shorter than 6-8minute intervals just yet, not unless you want to do specific VO2max training at >95% max HR.

We can all do the same HIIT workouts whether beginner or elite, the only difference is the pace!

You'll often see pace guides such as 2k+10seconds or similar but that requires knowing your 2k pace, which you probably don't yet know. Prescribing an effort at 90% of max HR also requires you to know your max, which again you probably don't know. So my advice would be to go at a tough but sustainable intensity. Maintain a steady pace and stroke rate throughout the whole interval.

A favourite of mine is 6x10min with 3min rest. It's taken a while for me to find that sweetspot - the pace at which I can sustain a steady effort for all 6 without blowing up. For me that pace is 1:48-49, for others it'll be different, faster or slower, but it will be an exact pace. You may want to try 2x or 3x 8-minute efforts to start with, taking 5min rest between. Better to go too easy than too hard. Focus on good form. Warm up properly. Do the same session a few times and you'll be able to zone in on the exact pace that feels right.

[hjs]

Hiit is certainly not stuff like 6x10 min.
The 80/20 is 80% aerobic work and 20% anaerobic. A 6x10 min session is very much aerobic and would fall in black hole category. Not slow enough to be pure aerobic and way to slow to yrain the anaerobic pathways.

[jamesg]

is there a formula for determining the appropriate HIIT workout?

Maybe you can find something adequately nasty here
https://indoorsportservices.co.uk/training/fast_track

You can choose a schedule as to your age, sex, weight and 4 minute test.

The HIIT is in the first column. A burst is ten strokes all out. 300 in level 1 or 2 means 5 sets of six 10-stroke bursts. The other levels have sets of 8x10 and 10x10 strokes.

[jurgwhitehouse]

Hiit is certainly not stuff like 6x10 min.

I was assuming that the OP wanted to know about HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in the context of a polarised 80/20 SS/HIIT training programme, because that's what he asked. 10min intervals are appropriate.

The 80/20 is 80% aerobic work and 20% anaerobic.

Incorrect. It's all aerobic. Anaerobic training is a very specific adaptation which can only occur at maximal intensities greater than VO2max power. It targets the type 2 fast-twitch muscle fibres which rowers would use for the start and finish of a 2k. Examples of anaerobic training would be something like 30sec sprints at full effort.

80/20 polarised training is about increasing aerobic power for endurance sports. It means doing 80% of sessions at an easy "UT2" intensity (around the aerobic threshold) and 20% of sessions at a harder "AT/TR" intensity (at or above the anaerobic threshold or MLSS). The most important point is to avoid spending too much time in the middle-ground, the black-hole, the UT1/tempo intensity which is not hard enough to force aerobic adaptations efficiently but is too hard to recover from.

Dr Stephen Seiler explains it here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ning_Needs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf3tczZrUgs

[jackarabit]

Too damn many schemes, formulae, quibbles and qualifications. It’s blipping the heart muscle, recovering, blipping it again, etc. It’s what you did as a kid right before you shouted Olly Olly in free! and fell down to catch your breath.

Losing your breath, catching your breath. Fartlëk. Running the hundred, walking 20 yards, going again. Jumps and hill sprints on the bike. Full with less than full recovery. Try 30” on 30” off reps until you wish you hadn’t. 1’ on 1’ off same same. Do once this week. Do it again next week and the week after. If reps to failure increase or RPE is lower next month, good on you.

[hjs]

Hiit is certainly not stuff like 6x10 min.

I was assuming that the OP wanted to know about HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in the context of a polarised 80/20 SS/HIIT training programme, because that's what he asked. 10min intervals are appropriate.

The 80/20 is 80% aerobic work and 20% anaerobic.

Incorrect. It's all aerobic. Anaerobic training is a very specific adaptation which can only occur at maximal intensities greater than VO2max power. It targets the type 2 fast-twitch muscle fibres which rowers would use for the start and finish of a 2k. Examples of anaerobic training would be something like 30sec sprints at full effort.

80/20 polarised training is about increasing aerobic power for endurance sports. It means doing 80% of sessions at an easy "UT2" intensity (around the aerobic threshold) and 20% of sessions at a harder "AT/TR" intensity (at or above the anaerobic threshold or MLSS). The most important point is to avoid spending too much time in the middle-ground, the black-hole, the UT1/tempo intensity which is not hard enough to force aerobic adaptations efficiently but is too hard to recover from.

Dr Stephen Seiler explains it here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ning_Needs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf3tczZrUgs

I don,t talk about Seiler...

I talk about training aerobic and anaerobic trainingpaths. Via the 80/20 methode, 80% of the time is used to train the aerobic side, the rest for the anaerobic system.

The start does not use the full anaerobic pathway, only the alactic part, the finish uses the full anaerobic energysystems where max lactate concentrations are reached. Do this at the start and your race is over......

Ofcourse depending on ones goal accents will be made, the shorter the race, the more important anaerobic capacity will be and vice versa.

For general health, we want all muscle fibers he used and kept. Older people first lose the fast fibers, due to simply not training them. To do so short, high intensity is needed. This via weights or sprints. Anything longer does mostly train the slower muscle fibers, which for this goal is not the goal. So keep it short and sharp.

[lindsayh]

for me HIIT is not really so much about 80/20 and Seiler and all that stuff but simply a part of our training that has probably been over thought/misunderstood a bit that probably fits into the 20% part of our training even though the cardio doesn't go up. The 80/20 actually refers to aerobic/anerobic not aerobic and HIIT.
My understanding is that HIIT is definitely not long intervals such as 6x10' (or my "favourite" 6x8'/2'R) - they are of course intervals and can be done with intensity but as Henry said they are mainly aerobic. When originally proposed my understanding is that HIIT was designed around short and very short intervals done at 100% effort with reasonable rests to allow the next one to be done hard again. They have to be done hard and you cant do that for very long or for many repeats.
These are my thoughts FWIW (maybe nothing!):
1) For me it is 30" 45" and 60" intervals done with 30"/75"/60"R
2) You can't use HR to judge intensity - the times are too short for it to go up so you wont get to 90% of MHR or the like - it is not unusual for your heart rate to still be <80% of max at the end of a HIIT type session
3) I use the Interactive Plan AN guide of 110-120% of 2k Watts as a measure of intensity and as the "line in the sand" for pacing. IMO if you are below 2k Watts then it ain't HIIT - although it could still be a great workout - I love 12+x 3'/1'R and that will get MHR >95%.
4) 30"/30" is a bit too short I reckon for enough recovery to nail each one so 30/60" may be better and 30' is a bit short to get up and running for me as there are just not enough strokes
5) 45"/75"R is a good sweet spot - longer but not too long with a better rest to open up the next interval and you can maintain the very high levels for longer
6) for most mere mortals 60" is a long time to be at absolutely full tilt and so 60/60 is pretty hard to maintain - could try 60/90"+. Longer intervals than 60" is not really HIIT for me.
7) don't forget that as Nav often says you don't have to do all intervals as HIIT or max - they can be done in all sorts of ways and different intensities and stroke rates

[bob01]

Hi

I assume you are trying a polarized program??

If you are aiming to maximise your aerobic capacity as opposed to anaerobic something that fall between your Vo2 max and anaerobic threshold would be of benefit... something between say your 10k pace and your 2k pace

[jurgwhitehouse]

If you are aiming to maximise your aerobic capacity as opposed to anaerobic something that fall between your Vo2 max and anaerobic threshold would be of benefit... something between say your 10k pace and your 2k pace

exactly this.

Anaerobic training - such as 30-60" sprint intervals at max power - will lead to injury at worst, stagnation at best. It should not be a regular part of any rowing training programme, certainly not 20%, and is only used by elite squads in the days leading up to races.

We seem to have different definitions of HIIT. In the CrossFit parlance, high-intensity work for short bursts is an important component of building non-specific strength and power. This type of circuit training can improve fitness rapidly for untrained people starting out. In the endurance world - running, cycling, skiing, rowing - high-intensity broadly covers any effort which is at or above the lactate threshold. We rowers call it AT/TR, cyclists call it FTP & Zone 4/5. It's that intensity level which cannot be sustained for long periods.

Describing intensities as either aerobic or anaerobic can be confusing because there isn't a clean switching point, and the term 'anaerobic threshold' implies that intensities rising up to this level (around 87%-92% HRmax) are purely aerobic and above it are anaerobic. It's not like that. The aerobic 'system' - that system which needs copious oxygen - is used at intensities all the way up to VO2max. That's the upper limit of what the aerobic system can achieve and it's equivalent to the the average power of a 6min all-out effort, or a 2k TT. Now, we can go faster than our VO2max, but we won't be using aerobic capacity, we need to solely use the anaerobic system. Different biochemistry in the muscles, there's no oxygen needed. Notice how 100m track sprinters don't get out of breath? Think of it as sheer brute strength.

This is roughly what's occurring in the muscles as we increase intensity using the UT/AT/TR/AN scale we're familiar with:
'UT1/2' --- Purely aerobic. Any lactate created by muscle fibres that stubbornly want to stay anaerobic-only is quickly and easily dealt with.
'AT' --- Still predominantly aerobic but the lactate is now building up. We're at a turnpoint of managing to control the lactic acid.
'TR' --- Still using the aerobic system but there is an increasing amount of anaerobic. Lactate is now rising out of control.
'AN' --- At VO2max the aerobic system cannot provide any more power, it's all anaerobic now.

We can train to increase our aerobic capacity which will improve our power output at intensities up to and including 2k pace, and we can increase our anaerobic capacity to improve our faster-than-2k pace. But that cannot be an 80/20 distribution.

With anaerobic training ('AN') the body responds quickly and improvements can be seen over days - but it fades just as fast. It's also tough to recover from and there's a very real possibility of injury and burnout. For these reasons elite athletes will only do this type of training when necessary. Anaerobic training does not scale. More is not better. There's an upper limit.

For recreational athletes like us, there is no benefit in doing 'AN' training if we have no intention of racing. (We can benefit from strength training though, even CrossFit-type HIIT circuit training off the erg to improve our whole-body conditioning). Spending your workout time - and recovering from 30-60" AN sprint intervals just distracts you from what you should be doing to improve all-round rowing performance - aerobic training.

Aerobic training is scalable, can be built upon year after year and has practically no upper limit. It has been shown that the most effective and efficient way to improve aerobic capacity (and improve performance across the range of ranking distances from 2k to 100k) is with an 80/20 polarized training programme. There's plenty online about it and the two links I gave earlier are a good start. What I like about this concept is that professional endurance athletes had been doing it for years before the sports science caught up. It also works for amateurs like us doing only a few hours a week.

I have also found this presentation "Developing the Endurance Rower" to be a good explanation of the relationship between intensity and training effect:
http://www.worldrowing.com/mm/Document/ ... eutral.pdf

I hope this helps.
TL/DR: Don't do sub-1 minute sprints on the erg unless you're already well trained and you're preparing for a race.

[Parky]

Myopic Squirrel, being the same age as you, I'm not doing much Hiit, just enjoying the Erg and waking up every morning. Hiit means running for a bus or chasing after young blondes.. I'm rowing to prolong my life, not end it. The heart is a mechanical pump and only has so much life in it, over-rev it and Robert is your mother's brother.

[jackarabit]

Your next assignment, John. Is this what you expected? YPMV of course. Drop the rest by 1’ and a lot of folks would be calling that high quality steady state with water stops. But, as Parky cautions, running after buses is way too much like short AN intervals! That leaves blondes. Doubt you, Parky and I together could survive that pursuit entered as a relay team. By the way, Charlotte was a brunette when last we met.

[EllenB]

Here's a world view highly influenced by Steve Seiler:
o Rowers aiming for general fitness and competitions of 2k and more benefit from a mix of about 80-85% pure endurance work and the rest high intensity work. Pure endurance work is at a steady level of effort during which you can speak in complete sentences. Often this is one breath per stroke at 18-20 rate OTW or on an erg. For science nerds, this is below ventilatory threshold 1.
o The overall system of UT2, UT1, AT, TR1, TR2 (in use by British and US Rowing) is based on science from the 1970s and 1980s, but roughly corresponds with Seiler zones 1-5 which is based on research from 1990s to present. Training based on UT2 to TR2 often has athletes spending too much time in AT zone which give limited bang for the work and recovery buck. Seiler's big insight was going very long and easy on easy days and very hard on hard days (polarizing), avoiding a central tendency towards AT.
o HIIT can often refer to Tabata intervals at super high intensities and 1:1 work interval to rest interval.
o Recent research says that accumulating minutes in Seiler's zone 4 (around 88% to 92% of HR max) works better than Tabata intervals to build aerobic fitness as measured by VO2 max and has reduced chance of injuries. Intervals like 6 x 1000/ 2:00, 5 x 1500/ 3:00, 4 x 2k/ 3:00, 2 or 3 x 2500/ 3:00 work very well to accumulate minutes in zone 4. Elite rowers would doing the same pieces, but more of them to accumulate more minutes in zone, like 10 x 1000/ 2:00, 8 x 1500/ 3:00. Do these weekly and you will fully earn lower 2k times.
o Old Wolverine assumptions about pacing still hold well. The pace that corresponds to max effort across zone 4 intervals is often right about L2 (recent 2k 500m pace + 8 sec per 500m). In fact, these intervals, done weekly can help calibrate L1 targets for upcoming 2k tests.
o Accumulating time in zone 5 (93% to 100% of HR max) gives fantastic fitness advantages but every second is difficult. Workouts like 2 x 4000/ 3:00 of 17/5 at L1 accumulates lots of seconds at zone 5. The 17/ 5 that I'm most familiar with is 4000m consisting 5 strokes to build to L1 pace, 12 strokes at L1, 5 strokes paddle, repeat the cycle of 5 build/ 12 L1/ 5 paddle to finish the 4000, 3:00 rest interval then repeat for 4000 more,
o Of course, intervals like 4 x 2k/ 3:00 at L2 and 2 x 4000 m of 17/5 rack up meters at high intensity by maxing out aerobic systems and triggering a semi-sustainable level of anaerobic metabolism. As a consequence, they challenge all the metabolic systems that let us go fast in 2ks Overall, these intervals may not be as frantic as Tabata intervals, but they sure do lower 2k test times.

[jackarabit]

Excellent historical summary and synthesis, EllenB. Fewer confusing acronyms for metabolic turnpts. Oresented as as standalone debate “gotchas”. Lessons for us all.