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Monday, September 16, 2013

By Howe Russ


There is so much conflicting advice in the gym that most people find it almost impossible to learn how to build muscle effectively. One of the biggest areas of concern surrounds HIIT.

Many people who perform this type of exercise are going for weight loss, however there is also a major use here for those looking to improve size and strength.

While there are certainly multiple benefits to be had from a good cardiovascular exercise plan, most people don't find cardio as interesting as weight training. This is particularly true with men, who seem far more interested in resistance workouts than hitting the treadmill or elliptical trainer.

Naturally, this behavior stems from a largely untrue stereotype that cardio is for women and weights are for men. This age old belief is something which has held countless gym members back for years and it's built upon lies.

Believe it or not, if your main target in the gym is to build more lean muscle then cardiovascular exercise will indeed play a huge role in your accomplishments. There are several effective forms of cardio which improve fitness and hypertrophy, most notably high intensity interval training.

There is a massive difference between the steady pace of regular cardio, often billed as boring, compared to that of a high intensity session. Despite being performed on the same equipment, it's a completely different style of workout.

Interval training is very simple when you get down to the finer details of it. Basically your aim is to switch from a moderate level to a high level every so often, causing your body to be unable to adapt. This will have similar effects on your muscles to a resistance workout.

The two primary energy sources we use during exercise are called aerobic and anaerobic. During regular cardio workouts we use our aerobic system. However, during both resistance training and high intensity intervals we use the anaerobic system instead.

Due to the fact that our body uses the same energy system during interval training as we do for resistance workouts, we actually burn calories in the same way. You may have already heard that a resistance workout causes your body to continue burning calories at an increased rate for hours after you leave the gym. This also happens with interval training, whereas regular cardio doesn't have these 'afterburn' benefits.

As you can see, learning how to build muscle isn't necessarily all about hitting the weights. HIIT is a great way to increase lean tissue, with the added benefit of stripping away unwanted body fat at an increased rate.




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