I'm sorry if this has been posted to bits somewhere, I just got tired of looking for it!
Wanting to take my running efforts to the next level, I want to start adding in some HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions.
My question is, how much rest should I give myself after? I ask because I keep seeing numbers like, it takes your body 48 hours to recover, etc etc. Does this mean I should take 2 days off? Or do some other exercise in-between, like long moderate-intensity runs or weight training?
Ideally, I'd like to do HIIT 2 times a week and bust through this plateau I've seemed to hit, as well as improve my endurance and speed in running.
Any information on this would be truly appreciated, I've been sifting through what the internet has to offer, but I'm not sure I trust all of it.
Oh, I want to know this too. I do HIIT 3 days a week, 2 of them on consecutive days - fri and sat of course. Had no problem for abt 6mths. But am getting increasingly tired out. Perhaps I got to ease up a little?
I try not to do HIIT or anything that's very strenuous (that is, where I am at max or near-max effort for most of the workout) 2 days in a row. But if I do HIIT on day one, I'll still do weights or non-HIIT cardio on day 2. The important thing is to not work at your max every day (unless you want to take more frequent rest days). I've seen the weights or non-HIIIT cardio day called a "recovery workout", because your body isn't resting, but you're still recovering from the very hard effort of the previous day by working at light/medium effort instead.
And yes, since it has happened to me: if you don't get enough rest, your will find yourself suffering from overtraining. It's a bad place to be! Recovery is important. Always be sure to take one day off--completely off!--a week.
I only work at high intensity a couple days a week. Maybe 2 highs and a moderate and the rest easier. but I run every day. You can recover and still workout, you just have to listen to your body.
I read somewhere not to do HIIT two days in a row, Body For Life maybe? I exercise at a pretty high heart rate level anyway, so I'm sure I do what would be considered HIIT for some people multiple days in a row sometimes, but I don't think it qualifies for me. I'm not always at the 'falling down' after finishing the workout stage that I read about. I have had the occasional overtraining fallout. Watch out for that! If you are tired now you may want to cut back a little bit to see what happens.
I try now for HIIT two times per week, strength training, three times per week, a long run on the sixth day. Sometimes the long run gets up into HIIT levels, but not as much.
I'm going for my second HIIT workout of the week in a few minutes. Gonna bike to the boardwalk, do running HIIT, then bike back.
Then I'll give myself a rest day (or easy run) tomorrow.
Does anybody else have trouble taking a complete day off? I think I may be addicted to exercise... it feels really weird not to do it for even a single day.
How much rest is required after HIIT?
