Endurance Training or Interval Training to Improve Endurance?
August 21, 2009 
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Interval training and HIIT, has been used by me for over 10 years. It jacks up the metabolism, increases your natural fat burning hormone (HGH) and simply helps you lose a lot more body fat than diet alone. For people that know about interval training, this is already known. The thing that is not widely known, it that you can better do endurance exercise, when you do interval training.
Great Results With The Interval Training Study
A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology back in 2005, took 16 subjects and divided them into 2 groups. For two weeks, eight of the people did sprint intervals, and the other eight people did nothing at all. Both of the groups were tested before and after the two weeks, for endurance capacity. They found that the interval group doubled their “endurance capacity” in this short time period!
Endurance Benefits Greater Than Endurance Exercise
Although we now know that High Intensity Interval Training, certainly increases endurance in people better than those that do nothing, what are the benefits for those who do endurance exercise? Researchers have said that their interval study results are like, or better than the previously reported training studies, based on aerobics training of the same time length. The people in the study, increased their endurance capacity better than the endurance study, in which the people did endurance exercise for 2 hours a day for 5 days a week, or a total of 20 hours.
15 Minutes of HIIT, or Two Hours of Normal Cardio?
It is a little insane, when you contemplate that by doing HIIT, you can increase your endurance capacity in greater amounts, than by doing the actual endurance exercise. For a whole lot of people, this will be a totally new change for them. The information that is contained in the study isn’t new, but it has yet to reach the mainstream audience. To this day, I rarely see people doing any type of interval work in the gym. It really is mind boggling! We have known for 15+ years that HIIT is superior to burning fat…and for the past 5 years that interval training may be one of the best ways to increase endurance.
How Can This Help Endurance Athletes?
I still believe that you must include endurance exercise if you are an endurance athlete. To be able to withstand the pain that comes from endurance exercise, the tendons and muscles must be strengthened. The best thing to do, is to do a mix of intervals along with your endurance training. In this way, you can get a great benefit from using both exercises.
How Does This Help Everyone Else?
By doing steady state cardio after HIIT, you can get more fat burning from the exercises. My body, as well as my joints are also in better condition, so that helps with sports that need me to run for a long time. It is wonderful when you can run for 20-30 minutes, and not have to suffer through body aches for a few days afterward. Right now, I only do this 1-2 times a week. You will probably not need to do steady state cardio for long time periods, if your only concern is losing weight.
