HI,
Ive HIIT for 3 sessions now, and Im confused about one thing. Is the Heart Rate Important or Time. What I mean is, I can get to my Max heart rate within 30 seconds, but it takes like 4 to 5 minutes to get my heart rate all the way down to 60% of my Max Heart Rate which is about 126. So this is like a long time to recover ...and so my question is do I just go for time, or is it really imporatant that I give myself time to recover to my low heart rate target to get the maximum benefits of HIIT. Ive asked this before on yahoo answers but I get two different answers, and I just want to hear from those who have experience with HIIT and its weight loss benefits, who could tell me what they did, or what worked for them. Heart rate or Time???

As long as your getting heart of 150 plus that the main thing, that when the fat burning catecholamines come into play. ont worry about the HR not coming down that far, as long as your going very slow so you can recover for your nex high intensity burst you will be fine.

thanks it took two days just to get reply to this question. Have you HIIT for a while now, because I would like to know if this is what most people go through at the beginning...with the heart rate taking forever to get back down during recovery. it takes nearly 4-5 minutes for my hr to get down to 60%. sometimes longer. thank you again for your reply.

What you describe is body's normal reaction to HIIT, and you are talking specifically about "oxygen debt". During HIIT you can't supply enough oxygen to your working muscles so the job is done anaerobically which produces lactic acid. It accumulates in your muscles and you soon stop. Immediately your body tries to get rid of it so as to avoid cell damage (acid); you breathe deeply for a certain time, and during this time oxygen breaks down lactic acid to carbon dioxide and water. When the accumulated lactic acid is broken down and the oxygen debt is repaid, normal breathing follows. How quickly your breathing and HR return to normal after exercise depends on your fitness level, and since you are still at the beginning....

Keep it up though, it will take some time but it's worth it!

And give yourself time to recover, it takes longer now i know, but soon your fitness level will go up and your recovery time is going to get a lot quicker.

will I still benefit from HIIT even though my recovery time is like...4-5 minutes?

Absolutely!! Your heart will be getting stronger and stronger, your cardiovascular system will become more efficient, and soon you will notice that you are going to need less and less recovery. Listen to your body, take as much recovery time as you need, you don't want to get injured do you?!

For what its worth, I've been going this for 14 weeks, I've lost 20 lbs and my resting heart rate has dropped from 75-80 to 55 or so. I recover significantly faster now too! It only gets better from the beginning

thanks fit4life . I really do appreciate your help. thank you. If you dont mind me asking, does hiit actually help you lose more fat than reg cardio? I just want to ask someone who has been doing it for a while. I have nice mucsles under my fat, so I just want to lose fat.

oh, and thecarguy, thank you for your stats as well. I like it when people post their success stories. its very motivating for me. thanks all!!!!!

Read bluebirdbiker's response which is right on target
Fat vs Carb Burn [Archive] - Trifuel.com
Then read this article to understand what "afterburn" is
Are Exercising to Burn Fat and Exercising to Burn Calories the Same Thing?

"There’s a lot of discussion about the “afterburn” or the thermic effect of exercise recovery. Yes, the body does burn energy to recover. A more intense workout requires more energy to recover – hence more calories burned after the workout". (Taken from the article)

The "afterburn" is real! I run 5km races every other Saturday, i do a lot of HIIT training for that, my HR reaches 190 at the closing stages...with me so far?..... ok!..... My POLAR tells me that i use around 500 calories during the race. Immediately after i finish, i start the POLAR again, just to check the effect of the race, and, believe it or not, after 80 min of recovery my POLAR shows an expenditure of.......600 calories! That's just after 80 min (my BMR is 110 calories/hour)...

THAT IS AWESOME!!!! so let me see if I understand you... you burned 500 calories during your race, then 80 min after the race you burned another 600 calories? wow....im no math wiz so from your opinion, what do you think my after burn would be ,considering I am new, female, with pretty good mucsle definition for a female[I](people tell me I have big arm muslces, and its from carrying my 25lbs toddler around during the day)[/I]Just your estimation, after 15 minutes of Hiit (not including the warmup and cooldown)? I think I burn maybe 150-200 calories during the HIIT, but I would love to burn another 300-500 calories after.... Thanks again for your answers. They are so awesome to read!!!!THANK YOU!

LOL, it's easy to check it. Set your HR monitor properly (age, height, weight, gender) and then wear it for 24 hours. It's going to be really uncomfortable but trust me it's worth it. Ok, ok, If you don't want to do that then wear it for an hour when you are relaxing, watching TV for example. Multiply the calories that you used for that hour by 24 and you will know how many calories you burn, approximately, per day.

When you know how many calories you burn per hour, then do your HIIT training, check how many calories you've burned (including warm up but not your cooldown). Restart your watch as soon as you finish your HIIT training(just before you start your cooldown), check after 60-80 min and thank me again later on .

I first have to get a HR moniter first. Depending on how much it cost, I may have to wait a few weeks. I hear that some arent that reliable...gives readings that are "off", so which HR moniter do you recommend I get?

Go for that watch, that's what i was using at the beginning, it's relatively cheap and did a lot for me. I have the RS200sd now, but it's because i break my training down to more technical stuff and it's twice the money, so it's really up to you. You can check them online and then decide. I train my clients with the RS100, it's more than enough.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me. Take care.