 Hey everybody, I'm Lance Goyke and today we're going to compare and contrast high intensity interval training, HIIT, HIIT classes versus long distance running. So physiologically, these things are kind of totally different. But they're both kind of used for the same thing. They're both kind of used just to stay fit and maybe to lose a little bit of weight. And they both work. So how can it be that they are seemingly completely different, but can still accomplish the same thing? So first let's describe high intensity interval training. When I do intervals, I have a work period and I have a rest period. So let's say my favorite high intensity interval training work period is 30 seconds with a rest period of 30 seconds. So during my first work 30 seconds, my intensity climbs up, my output climbs up, my heart rate climbs up like this. And then while I recover, if this is like my resting heart rate, that's going to be kind of low. Let's say that's about 70 or so. I'm going to say this is heart rate. And then here we have time, lowercase t obviously. So during my first work period, 30 seconds, my heart rate climbs up, maybe it climbs up to 130. Okay. And we're going to say the top here is 200. Then during my next 30 seconds of rest, it starts to climb back down. It's not going to go all the way back down to resting though, because I'm not totally resting. I'm still recovering from that last 30 seconds. And then my 30 seconds is going to run out and I'm going to have to come back up. And I'm probably going to see my peak go a little bit higher. And we're going to notice that repeat over and over and over again to a certain extent. And eventually I'm going to hit a peak, a plateau. But if I try to like, if I draw a line of best fit through this, I see a linear increase in my average heart rate. And then I see a plateau. Okay. So it looks like this, just like that. Okay. And that is my heart rate response to this exercise. Then let's say I'm done exercising right here. I still have a heart rate element to this, right? I have at least 70 beats per minute while I'm resting, not doing anything. So you're always using some sorts of energy. We exercise to create physiological changes in our body and to kind of to continue to put out or increase our caloric output so that our energy balance thing is a little bit easier. So we don't have to eat so little that we always feel hungry, you know? But after high intensity interval training, this heart rate is, it's not going to just come all the way down here. It's going to gradually come down and it might take 20 minutes to get back to maybe that 70 beats per minute that we would normally look for in showing us total resting. Okay. And we call this little area here our epoch, exercise, post oxygen consumption or something like that. I really need to learn that acronym. I think that might be it. But basically for high intensity interval training, this is very aerobic, just like long distance running is. And I'm still burning calories. My calorie burn is still elevated. Okay. So that is that. Now, how should we do this? Let's do another color here, say green. Now if I do long distance running, I'm pretty much going to have this line of best fit as my heart rate. So it's going to climb and it's going to plateau. And then it's going to kind of fall down when I'm done. And it's probably going to fall down a little bit quicker because I don't have the same byproducts of exercise because the exercise wasn't quite as intense. The muscle physiology isn't quite as messed up by this type of exercise. But the other big difference is that I'm probably going to do this for a lot longer. Right. I'm going to need more whiteboard to show my entire duration of long distance running because if I go for a long distance run, it's not quite as intense. We say it's a moderate maybe to vigorous activity rather than a super vigorous activity repeated over and over and over again. So my muscles can stand that for a lot longer. They're not going to gas out quite as fast. I'm not going to lose my will to continue so quickly. So with long distance running, my heart rate stays elevated for longer. This is not to scale because I'm probably not going to hang on to a 200 beats per minute heart rate for very long. But this will expend more energy. So my general output of my work done is longer is more. And so my caloric expenditure is more. That means I'm going to be allowed to eat a little bit more and still lose weight. But it's going to take me a lot more time. Right. This exercise could be 60 to 90 to 120 minutes, whereas my high intensity interval training could be 30 or 20. And I might get, I probably won't get the same caloric expenditure out of high intensity interval training, but I'm going to stress my muscles a little bit while I'm recovering. It's still going to be like my body is working out because of this epoch phenomenon. So they both expend energy in aerobic zones, especially while I recover from exercise, while I recover, while I recover, while I recover, while I recover. And afterwards, after I'm done exercising, while I recover from the whole bout of everything. So high intensity interval training is still very aerobic. Whereas long distance running is totally aerobic the entire time, because if I go anaerobic, I can't do it for a long distance. Therefore, it would not be long distance running. Cool. That went better than I expected. So both of them serve their place. If you're looking to get better at running, you should probably be running, right? Don't worry about 30, 30 intervals. Don't worry about high intensity interval training. That's probably not right for you. But if you're looking to kind of do something a little bit more efficiently, and your body seems to do okay with it, then I would look into high intensity interval training as a way to efficiently keep your fitness.