If you haven't guessed it yet we love high intensity interval training (HIIT) here at Fitness Blender. There is no other style of exercising that burns so many calories in such a small amount of time and improves your cardiovascular endurance at the same time. This is one of our favorite ways to do HIIT which is using a Tabata interval set up, basically 20 seconds doing the exercise and 10 seconds of rest before starting again. In this video we are going through 5 exercises, doing each 3 times (or 3 intervals of 20 on and 10 off) before moving to the next exercise. There is no extra rest when switching between exercises, just the regular 10 seconds, which keeps your cardio levels up at the same time as allowing us to move more quickly through the routine.

Before we start with the fun HIIT section however you need to do a warm up and we have included a quick 3 minute warm up to get you ready. If you need more time to warm up then feel free to pause the video and add some more of your own exercises, to get a more complete warm up. We are doing each of these 6 exercises for 30 seconds each.

Once you have completed the HIIT routine and you have been able to catch your breath then we will move on to a quick cool down stretch to keep your muscles from tightening up on you and also to help keep you from being sore the next day. Remember that you don't have to do our cool down but we highly suggest doing at least some kind of cool down to help with muscle recovery and reducing soreness but it is also a great time to work on corrective stretching to fix any imbalances from left to right and/or improve overall range of motion. You should only do this type of long duration corrective stretching after a workout or at least no closer than 2 hours before doing a workout so you never workout on excessively loose joints.

This HIIT routine, including the warm up and cool down, is 18 minutes and because of the intensity of the HIIT section of the routine you can average a calorie burn anywhere from 8 to 14 calories per minute. Your total calorie burn can be anywhere from 144 to 252 calories, but keep in mind that the number of calories you burn is more related to the level of effort you maintain more than your age, gender, height or weight though those last two also have a large effect. So, if you want the most out of this routine, calorie burn wise but also, cardiovascular and endurance wise, then you need to make sure you really push yourself and constantly keep your body's desire to "cheat" in check.

The following is a list of the exercises used in this video.

Warm Up:

Torso Rotations
Full Torso Circle (Alternating)
Squat
Jog In Place
Jumping Jacks
High Knees

HIIT Routine:

Lateral Burpees
Star Jumps
Plank to Push Ups
Flutter Kick Squats
Squat Jacks + Jumps

Cool Down Stretch:

Toe Touch
Quad Stretch (Left and Right)
Inside Thigh (Left and Right)
Wide Hamstring stretch
Deep Glute (Left and Right)
Torso Stretch (Left and Right)
Cobra Stretch