ONLINE DRIVERS MEDIA

In general, you have to count and limit your weekly HIIT sessions. Doing as much as humanly possible, could yet make sense, when youre preparing for Olympia 2016 and realize 5 weeks before the event that you have been lingering for too long ;-)

Figure 2: Illustration of the training in the low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) group.

Figure 2: VO2max and heart rate values of the 16 healthy subjects before / after high vs. low frequency HIIT (Hatle. 2014)

Figure 3: If time is an issue, its probably worth to overreach for 3 weeks and compete after two weeks of "intense" detraining (Hatle. 2014)

Bottom line: If you are pressed in time, a short phase of very frequent training can bring your conditioning up faster (5 weeks vs. 6 weeks; see Figure 3). For an athlete who may react slightly different to this kind of protocol than the average Joes in the study at hand this one week could decide victory or defeat.

For someone who is in this for life - a true physical culturist, so to say - HIITing it everyday is not just madness, it is also very likely to end up producing the previously hinted at detrimental performance (and later on health) effects, as soon as this brief episode of overreaching becomes and endless nightmare of overtraining.

• Hatle H, Støbakk PK, Mølmen HE, Brønstad E, Tjønna AE, et al. "Effect of 24 Sessions of High-Intensity Aerobic Interval Training Carried out at Either High or Moderate Frequency, a Randomized Trial." PLoS ONE 9(2). (2014): e88375. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088375

Dont fall for someone who overgeneralizes, misreports or -interprets study results to tell you that healthy mid-range testosterone levels were a major trigger of cancer development.

If its not testosterone its usually meat thats blamed to increase your cancer risk.

Meat-Love: You May Eat Pork, too!

You Eat What You Feed!

Meat & Prostate Cancer?

Meat - Is cooking the problem

Meat Packaging = Problem?

Grass-Fed Pork? Is it Worth it?

"For risk of early death after cancer, for men [...]" (Ørsted. 2014)

• if you are in the 2nd quartile, your risk will be increased by 30%,
• if you are in the 3rd quartile, your risk will be increased by 31%,
• if you are in the 4th quartile, your risk will be increased by 52% and
• if you are in the 5th quartile, your risk will be increased by 80%.

Figure 1: If you look at a random assemble of the myriad of risk associations that have been established for low T, the results of the study at hand do no longer appear to be that frightening - right?

• family history of cancer, which is one of the, if not the main correlate of your risk of developing various cancer, such as prostate cancer (1000% increase, no typo | Steinberg. 1990), colon cancer (up to 59% risk increase depending on the region | Slattery. 1994) or breast cancer (145% risk increase with first-degree relative having breast cancer | Slattery. 1993) 
• diabetes, which has been found to be associated with a 60% increase in colorectal cancer risk in patients who have been diagnosed with diabetes 10+ years ago (La Vecchia. 1997), a
• the level of visceral fat, where high levels (relative to total body fat) are associated with 850% increased risk of breast cancer (Schapira. 1994) and up to 1000% increased prostate cancer risk (Hafe. 2004)
• low sleep duration and quality, which has been associated with an increased risk of developing almost every form of cancer you can think of (Blask. 2009), including 60% increased breast cancer risk for women working the "graveyard shift" (Davis. 2001)

• Araujo, Andre B., et al. "Endogenous testosterone and mortality in men: a systematic review and meta-analysis." The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 96.10 (2011): 3007-3019.
• Blask, David E. "Melatonin, sleep disturbance and cancer risk." Sleep medicine reviews 13.4 (2009): 257-264.
• Davis, Scott, Dana K. Mirick, and Richard G. Stevens. "Night shift work, light at night, and risk of breast cancer." Journal of the national cancer institute 93.20 (2001): 1557-1562.
• Garavello, Werner, et al. "Family history and the risk of oral and pharyngeal cancer." International journal of cancer 122.8 (2008): 1827-1831.
• Hafe, Pedro, et al. "Visceral fat accumulation as a risk factor for prostate cancer." Obesity research 12.12 (2004): 1930-1935.
• La Vecchia, Carlo, et al. "Diabetes mellitus and colorectal cancer risk." Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 6.12 (1997): 1007-1010.
• Morgentaler, Abraham. "Testosterone and prostate cancer: an historical perspective on a modern myth." european urology 50.5 (2006): 935-939.
• Raynaud, Jean-Pierre. "Prostate cancer risk in testosterone-treated men." The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology 102.1 (2006): 261-266.
• Roddam, Andrew W., et al. "Endogenous sex hormones and prostate cancer: a collaborative analysis of 18 prospective studies." Journal of the National Cancer Institute 100.3 (2008): 170-183.
• Slattery, Martha L., and Richard A. Kerber. "A comprehensive evaluation of family history and breast cancer risk: the Utah Population Database." Jama 270.13 (1993): 1563-1568.
• Slattery, Martha L., and Richard A. Kerber. "Family history of cancer and colon cancer risk: the Utah Population Database." Journal of the National Cancer Institute 86.21 (1994): 1618-1626.
• Schapira, David V., et al. "Visceral obesity and breast cancer risk." Cancer 74.2 (1994): 632-639.
• Shores, Molly M., et al. "Low serum testosterone and mortality in male veterans." Archives of internal medicine 166.15 (2006): 1660-1665.
• Stattin, Pär, et al. "High levels of circulating testosterone are not associated with increased prostate cancer risk: a pooled prospective study." International journal of cancer 108.3 (2004): 418-424.
• Steinberg, G. D., Carter, B. S., Beaty, T. H., Childs, B. and Walsh, P. C. (1990), Family history and the risk of prostate cancer. Prostate, 17: 337–347. doi: 10.1002/pros.2990170409 
• Tsai, Henry K., et al. "Androgen deprivation therapy for localized prostate cancer and the risk of cardiovascular mortality." Journal of the National Cancer Institute 99.20 (2007): 1516-1524. 
• Ujpál, Márta, et al. "Diabetes and Oral Tumors in Hungary Epidemiological correlations." Diabetes care 27.3 (2004): 770-774.
• Wallace, Euan M., et al. "Effects of chemotherapy-induced testicular damage on inhibin, gonadotropin, and testosterone secretion: a prospective longitudinal study." The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 82.9 (1997): 3111-3115.
• Whitehead, E., et al. "The effects of Hodgkins disease and combination chemotherapy on gonadal function in the adult male." Cancer 49.3 (1982): 418-422.

How can I earn through blogging?

Or, How to make money from blog? 

Or, Can I earn from my blog?

Remember: HIIT does not have to happen on the treadmill.

You can learn more about HIIT at the SuppVersity

Add 2lsb of Lean Mass in 3 Weeks

Tabata = 14.2kcal /min ? Fat Loss

30s Intervals + 2:1 Work/Rec.

Making HIIT a Hit Part I/II

Making HIIT a Hit Part II/II

HIIT Aint For Everyone

1. HIIT is more time efficient - Unless you have lost your hob and are looking to kill the newly won time in 2015, you are probably similarly short on time as most of us. Against that background, the mere time efficiency of HIIT workouts are an argument even the most feverish advocates of  low-intensity hour-long cardio cannot deny (Gaesser. 2011; Gillen. 2013).
   

   Figure 1: In contrast to often-heard claims, HIIT is not just a "glucose burner" its also a fat burner. It does (a) increase the oxidation of fatty acids after the workout and (b) increases your muscles and other cells general ability to oxidize fat as fuel (see figure from Talanian. 2007).

   "As few as 6 sessions of HIIT over a 2-week period for a total of about 15 minutes of very intense exercise (equating to approximately 600 kJ or 143 cal) have been shown to increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and alter metabolic control during aerobic-based exercise (Gibala. 2008). And 7 HIIT sesssions performed over 2 weeks significantly heightened whole body and skeletal muscle capacity for fatty acid oxidation during exercise in moderately active women (Talanian. 2007). For those who have limited time to work out, this makes HIIT an intriguing option" (Schoenfeld. 2009).

   And even if your goal is not to get fitter, but rather to burn more energy, HIIT can do what steady state cardio will never achieve, i.e. burn 14.5 kcal/min (see "Tabata Workouts: Do They Work & How Energy-Demanding Are They? 14.5 Kcal/Min Sounds Nice, But You Must Earn It!" | learn more). In the end, short workouts will thus increase your 24h energy expenditure to the same extend endless steady-state workouts would do (Skelly. 2014).
   

   "HIIT may help insufficiently active individuals overcome a major barrier to maintaining a physically active lifestyle, that of a perceived lack of time. An added bonus is that from a time:benefit perspective, HIIT may prove to be a good example where less can be more" (Gaesser. 2011).

   And it does not even take a Tabata workout to time-efficiently improve your health. As a SuppVersity reader you will be aware that "4x4 Minutes of HIIT Per Week Thats All It Takes For Already Well-Conditioned Individuals to Stimulate Mitochondrial Growth ? 15% Increase in VO2Max, Peak & Mean Power" | learn more.
2. HIIT has more favorable effects on your glucose metabolism and heart health - You probably have heard that 1h on the treadmill was the ideal exercise for the obese type II diabetic, right? Well, this may in fact be true, but the reason thats ideal for an obese type II diabetic is that even walking on a treadmill is a high intensity exercise for someone who weighs 300-450lbs.
   

   Figure 2: A 2008 study in healthy, normal-weight young women proves: HIIT "cardio" training leads to significantly more pronounced improvements in all three central variables of glucose metabolism than a comparable steady-state "cardio" workout (Trapp. 2008).

   That being said, for all of you with at least a decent amount of fitness, HIIT training with its ability to burn tons of glycogen within just a few minutes should be the preferred mode of exercise. A mode of exercise which has far more potent effects on the expression of the anti-diabetic, anti-obesity and anti-metabolic syndrome proteins AMPK and SIRT-1 than any other form of exercise (Gurd. 2010) and has thus not surprisingly been shown to have superior effects on central markers of glucose metabolism in a 2008 study by Trapp et al. - and that in healthy, lean, young women (see Figure 2).
   
   A similar superiority has been observed by Weston et al. (2013) in patients with lifestyle-induced cardiometabolic disease. Their systematic review and meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine indicates that "HIIT significantly increases CRF [cardio-respiratory fitness] by almost double that of MICT in patients with lifestyle-induced chronic diseases." (Weston. 2013).
3. HIIT exercise will help curb your cravings - While steady-state "cardio" has repeatedly been associated with increases in appetite, hunger and most importantly food intake, there is good evidence that "Intensity [is] the Key to Minimize Exercise Induced Cravings?" (learn more)
   

   Figure 3: Effects of exercise duration and intensity on energy intake; exemplary study results from Erdmann et al. (2007, left) and Larson-Meyer et al. (2012, right).

   I dont want to repeat myself on this one. Instead I will just refer you to a recent SuppVersity article on that matter and the plethora of evidence that confirms the negligible or beneficial effects of high intensity interval training on appetite, hunger and how much food you eat and thus ruin any exercise-induced reduction in your daily energy balance (Alkahtani. 2014; Martins. 2014).
   
   

   Figure 4: VAS scores for hunger (A), desire to eat (B), fullness (C), and thirst (D) during REST (black line) and EX (gray line) (n = 15). Hatched rectangles represent the treadmill run/rest; striped rectangles represent the fMRI scan (Crabtree. 2014).

   Before I go on to the #4 on the benefits list, I would yet like to highlight the following result from a recent study from the University college of London:
   

   "Exercise increases neural responses in reward-related regions of the brain in response to images of low-calorie foods and suppresses activation during the viewing of high-calorie foods" (Crabtree. 2014)

   Cant believe what you just read? Look at the figure on the right which depicts the VAS scores for hunger, desire to eat, fullness, and thirst, during REST (black line) and EX (gray line) in N=15 lean healthy men who completed two 60-min trials—exercise and a resting control trial (REST).
   
   Thus, the study clearly confirms the validity of the suggestion to stay scrap your steady-state cardio workouts and replace them with HIIT, in order to finally be able to stick to your diet plans and see the fat loss you are looking for.
4. HIIT ramps up the metabolism instead of ruining it - As long as you dont overdo it by training too often or extending your HIIT sessions to 1h, HIIT will produce a profound "after burn" thats 3x higher than in the case of classic steady-state "cardio" workouts.
   

   Figure 5: EPOC and corresponding additional energy expenditure in the high intensity 3x Wingate group (SPIE) and the 30min continuous exercise group (HIE) during the 30 min right after the workout (Townsend. 2013)

   As a standalone, this previously reported benefit is hardly worth the paper it is printed on. In conjunction with the previously mentioned benefits, however, it is an important benefit of HIIT that must not be underestimated.
5. HIIT is perfectly scalable - Unlike steady-state cardio, where you would have to endlessly increase your workout times, HIIT workouts are easily scalable. You can either...
   

   • HRV = heart rate recovery analyses are a great tool to monitor your training & recovery | learn more

     do an additional interval (volume increase),
      
   • increase the resistance on your training device or run / cycle on a more difficult track (intensity increase),
   • increase the speed at which you run, pedal or row (intensity increase), or
      
   • reduce the time of active rest between the intervals (intensity increase)
   and thus have many more options to tweak the workouts to your individuals needs. For beginners this is not that important. An obese type II diabetic has plenty of room to increase the pace and / or duration of his / her steady-state "cardio" workouts. A trained athletes, on the other hand, will soon hit a wall, when he / she begins to cycle at 90% intensity for 2h everyday.

Bottom line: As you can see, there are plenty of good arguments in favor of HIIT training. Arguments that do yet not warrant replacing "classic" steady-state endurance training altogether. In fact, comparisons of high intensity interval and classic endurance training in trained athletes show that both are equally effective (Owens. 2013). If you are a triathlete or other endurance athlete, your interpretation of the science presented in the study at hand must still be different. For you (as an endurance athlete), replacing 50% your sport-specific training, which is steady-state training, with HIIT isnt advisable. Adding one or the other HIIT session from time to time, on the other hand, is.

HIIT "cardio", steady-state "cardio" and the sympathetic and parasymphatic nervous system | more

For the average gymrat, important arguments to keep the classic cardio exercises in their routine can be (a) personal preference (even the best workout is only beneficial if you actually do it) and (b) the recovery of the sympathetic nervous system. While low intensity steady state cardio - if its done in reasonable amounts - may actually improve the recovery of the sympathetic nervous system the day after a strength training session. A HIIT workout will further tax it. If you belong to those who hit the weights 5x per week, it may thus be wiser to stick to steady state instead of HIIT exercise as your preferred weight training regimen to give your sympathetic nervous system time to recover during a low intensity steady-state workout | Comment on Facebook!

• Alkahtani, Shaea A., et al. "Acute interval exercise intensity does not affect appetite and nutrient preferences in overweight and obese males." Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition 23.2 (2014): 232.
• Crabtree, Daniel R., et al. "The effects of high-intensity exercise on neural responses to images of food." The American journal of clinical nutrition 99.2 (2014): 258-267.
• Erdmann, Johannes, et al. "Plasma ghrelin levels during exercise—effects of intensity and duration." Regulatory peptides 143.1 (2007): 127-135.
• Gaesser, Glenn A., and Siddhartha S. Angadi. "High-intensity interval training for health and fitness: can less be more?." Journal of Applied Physiology 111.6 (2011): 1540-1541.
• Gibala, Martin J., and Sean L. McGee. "Metabolic adaptations to short-term high-intensity interval training: a little pain for a lot of gain?." Exercise and sport sciences reviews 36.2 (2008): 58-63.
• Gillen, Jenna B., and Martin J. Gibala. "Is high-intensity interval training a time-efficient exercise strategy to improve health and fitness?." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 39.3 (2013): 409-412.
• Gurd, Brendon J., et al. "High-intensity interval training increases SIRT1 activity in human skeletal muscle." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 35.3 (2010): 350-357. 
• Larson-Meyer, D. Enette, et al. "Influence of running and walking on hormonal regulators of appetite in women." Journal of obesity 2012 (2012).
• Martins, Catia, et al. "Effect of Moderate-and High-Intensity Acute Exercise on Appetite in Obese Individuals." Medicine and science in sports and exercise (2014). 
• Owens, Krystyna. "The effectiveness of high intensity interval training in improving VO< sub> 2</sub> max for performance gains as compared to standard endurance training in athletes." (2013).
• Schoenfeld, Brad, and Jay Dawes. "High-intensity interval training: Applications for general fitness training." Strength & Conditioning Journal 31.6 (2009): 44-46. 
• Skelly, Lauren E., et al. "High-intensity interval exercise induces 24-h energy expenditure similar to traditional endurance exercise despite reduced time commitment." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 39.999 (2014): 1-4.
• Talanian, Jason L., et al. "Two weeks of high-intensity aerobic interval training increases the capacity for fat oxidation during exercise in women." Journal of applied physiology 102.4 (2007): 1439-1447. 
• Townsend JR, Stout JR, Morton AB, Jajtner AR, Gonzalez AM, Wells AJ, Mangine GT, McCormack, WP Emerson NS, Robinson EH, Hoffman JR, Fragala MS Cosio-Lima L. Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) Following Multiple Effort Sprint And Moderate Aerobic Exercise. Kinesiology. 2013; 45(1):16-21
• Trapp, E. G., et al. "The effects of high-intensity intermittent exercise training on fat loss and fasting insulin levels of young women." International journal of obesity 32.4 (2008): 684-691. 
• Weston, Kassia S., Ulrik Wisløff, and Jeff S. Coombes. "High-intensity interval training in patients with lifestyle-induced cardiometabolic disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis." British journal of sports medicine (2013): bjsports-2013.

Believe it or not, but the question "low or high carb for breakfast" is non-sense, because there is no general answer. It depends on who is asking and what he is going to spend the rest of his day.

Learn more about fasting and eating / skipping breakfast at the SuppVersity

Breakfast and Circadian Rhythm

Does Meal Timing Matter?

Breakfast & Glucose Metab.

Breaking the Fast, Cardio & the Brain

Does the Break- Fast-Myth Break?

Fasting = Muscle- Loss - Always?

Figure 1: Prevalence of skipping meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and snacking in the US, 2009–10 (McCory. 2014).

Figure 2: Prevalence of breakfast skipping among US men and women (USDA)

• skipping breakfast leads to lower satiety than if breakfast had been eaten, thus 
• overeating will ensue later in the day, which
• over time would result in weight gain

"in which breakfast skipping could result in no weight change over time, if breakfast skipping does not lead to overeating (i.e., if there is perfect compensation for the missed meal), or to weight loss if there is lack of compensation." (McCrory. 2014)

Figure 3: Theoretical models illustrating different types of breakfast skippers vs. a habitual breakfast eater (McCrory. 2014).

• Acute feeding studies on breakfast skipping effects on energy intake and appetite later in the day show equivocal results.
• Longer-term (2–3 weeks) randomized controlled trials do not show effects of breakfast skipping on weight change.
• In prospective studies with 3.7–10 years follow-up, individuals who consume breakfast more frequently gain less weight.

Lets assume you decide you want to have breakfast, because this works for you and you dont belong to the unfortunate people with an APO-E4-genetyp - in that case Id suggest you consider having one or multiple eggs, incl. the yolk, to boost your cholesterol reverse transport and improve your cholesterol profile | learn more.

Bottom Line: Considering all the previously presented facts, we have to admit that we are currently, not at a point where anyone could prove a causal relationship between breakfast skipping and an increased obesity risk. Personally, I dont believe that there is a general connection - specifically not in those of us who eat clean and keep an eye on their overall food intake.

Furthermore, the average American breakfast consists of sugar-coated breakfast cereals with bacon... well, sort of. So skipping a meal like this is probably not going to hurt anyone. Whats really intriguing, though, is the number of lunch skippers. A number I havent been aware of, when I started writing this article, and a number I am planning to address in a future article - assuming I find more evidence than the two potentially relevant studies that popped up in my first cursory database search.

• Brown, Andrew W., Michelle M. Bohan Brown, and David B. Allison. "Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence." The American journal of clinical nutrition 98.5 (2013): 1298-1308.
• Kant, Ashima K., and Barry I. Graubard. "Secular trends in the association of socio-economic position with self-reported dietary attributes and biomarkers in the US population: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1971–1975 to NHANES 1999–2002." Public health nutrition 10.02 (2007): 158-167.
• McCrory, Megan A. "Meal skipping and variables related to energy balance in adults: A brief review, with emphasis on the breakfast meal." Physiology & Behavior (2014).