Why HIIT may be “bad” for you

HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training) workouts promise better results in less time, but they can take a toll on your body. It’s true that HITT has a lot of benefits, but it also has a lot of potential drawbacks. Overdoing any type of exercise can spell damage for your body, but with HIIT, it’s important to be especially cautious. Recent research has shown that performing too much high-intensity exercise may undo the very benefits you started doing it for in the first place.

Unwanted side effects

HIIT can push our bodies to limits that spike our cortisol levels. As the primary stress hormone in the body, cortisol is involved in how our body handles ‘fight or flight.’ Although short-term spikes can help our body grow stronger, too high an increase over longer periods can result in a number of unwanted side effects, including digestive issues, bloating and weight gain.

Affects your metabolism

While a bit of HIIT can improve your endurance, long hours of this style of training can overstress your body and dampen your metabolism. You may have come across several videos that promise the moon, when it comes to HIIT. They say it works for everyone, even beginners. Well, the truth is NO, they don’t. These are hard workouts, and you are going to feel that every time you go for them! And if you are a beginner, you are going to be in a lot of pain, because you need a certain kind of stamina to go for it!

Higher chance of injury

HIIT exercises causes a higher chance of injury. Since you are doing these exercises a lot faster than you normally would, it means you won’t have as much control over your body movements when you do normal exercises. However, if you are just starting out on your HIIT journey, then take care to control your movements as much as you can.

The bottom-line

Researchers have found that the optimal amount of HIIT to complete in one week is a combined 90 minutes for an improvement in health and fitness, with a boost in participants’ power and stamina. But any more than this and the effects will start to reverse as you’ll be overtraining. So next time you’re planning out your training week, limit yourself to no more than 90 minutes of HIIT. Try for three 30-minute sessions and take a brisk walk on the days in between