How Many Times a Week Should You Do HIIT Exercises

HIIT exercises have received a lot of attention over the last few years due to their many advantages. A HIIT workout is a fantastic method to engage in difficult cardiovascular and metabolic workouts for a short period of time, making it a far more effective technique to increase aerobic fitness and health than conventional steady-state training.

You'll need to concentrate on your diet and exercise if you want to lose weight, but setting up a regular training schedule is a great place to start. In addition to strength training and cardio, HIIT may be the secret weapon you're looking for to enhance fat loss.

But the question is how often should you perform these exercises? Let's find the answer to this question.

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How Often Should You Perform HIIT Exercises?

This question is challenging to answer without any knowledge of a person's goals, degree of stress, or prior training. Your degree of fitness, goals, capacity for recovery, and other factors will all affect how much HIIT you do.

Even though HIIT exercises provide a lot of advantages, it's generally not a good idea to practice HIIT every day.

Your degree of fitness, goals, capacity for recovery and other factors will all affect how much HIIT you do. (Image via Pexels/ RF Studio)

According to studies, overdoing HIIT training may affect blood sugar control, mitochondrial function, and the stress hormone cortisol levels.

Check out the best yoga poses to relieve stress.

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Factors Influencing Frequency of HIIT Exercises

The best HIIT frequency and the maximum number of HIIT sessions you should perform each week rely on a number of variables:

1) Fitness level

How frequently you perform HIIT exercises depends a lot on your level of fitness. Beginners should commence with one HIIT session per week and gradually increase to two to three per week.

The more unfit you are, the longer the recuperation period. Your body requires time to adjust to the pressures of HIIT workouts.

2) Duration of HIIT

The duration of your HIIT exercises is undoubtedly one of the key elements that affects the maximum frequency of HIIT per week.

Your body requires adequate rest when working out at such a high intensity to prevent injury. (Image via Unsplash/ Gabin Vallet)

It's typically recommended to have at least one full rest day every week. If your HIIT workouts are longer than 20 minutes, especially if they are close to 45 minutes, it's crucial to realize that your body will suffer greatly and you will need to spend a lot of time recovering.

3) Fitness goals

When choosing how frequently to perform HIIT exercises, it's also beneficial to take your fitness objectives into account.

Depending on your level of fitness, the type of exercise you’re doing, and the length of the sessions, you can aim to lose fat and just get in better shape and can benefit from performing HIIT as frequently as is safe.

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How Much HIIT Is Too Much?

HIIT exercises are excellent for burning fat and calories alike. Doing too much, however, might cause biological disruptions and make achieving your goals more difficult.

Cycling is also a great HIIT workout. (Image via Unsplash Jonny Kennaugh)

Exercising in excess can lead to harm, depression, poor performance, loss of muscle mass, and other problems. Additionally, your body's stress chemicals are frequently in charge of controlling fat storage when you work out.

Your body requires adequate rest when working out at such a high intensity to prevent injury and overtraining, but perhaps more significantly, to give your muscles time to recover and grow after a workout.

Many of us have the propensity to minimize the role that recovery plays in the bigger picture of health and fitness, or even to blame ourselves for not exerting ourselves more when, in reality, recovery is where the magic happens.

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What Happens If You Overtrain?

When choosing how frequently to perform HIIT, it's also beneficial to take your fitness objectives into account. (Image via Unsplash/ Gabin Vallet)

Trainees erroneously believe that all improvements occur in the gym and not during rest and recovery. Your muscles experience small rips as a result of rigorous HIIT exercises and strength training.

You will become stronger and your tears will mend if you rest, get enough sleep, foam roll, and consume enough protein. You run the risk of overtraining if you don't do any of those things.

Here are some warning signs that you need to take a break because you are overtraining:

• After a HIIT workout, you're always exhausted.
• You go through mood swings.
• You're not getting enough sleep.
• You don't have the motivation to train.

It is necessary to slow down and include some recovery as soon as you experience the aforementioned symptoms of overtraining.