HIIT - Less is more?

[limitup]

So I want to start squeezing in a few ~10-minute HIIT sessions a few times per day. I'm planning on starting out with simple hill sprints since there's one right outside.

I was planning on doing something like 30 seconds on and 60 seconds off, repeated 6 times to start. Not quite Tabata, but pretty aggressive.

... But then I read Andy really recommends a much "easier" 1:5 work/rest ratio so I'm just curious if something like that is really better?

I mean, will I really get better overall results by taking the "easy" route and sprinting for 20 seconds and resting 100 seconds, and doing that 5 times vs. 30 seconds/60 seconds 6 times?

[JTC_MN]

The 1:5 ratio is recommended because it conditions for lifting and getting strong. If you are not participating in other sports, this ratio will serve you well.

[limitup]

I'm a tennis player. That's why I was thinking of something more like 30 seconds on and 60 seconds off, which more closely resembles points in a tennis match.

[mrflibble]

I'm a tennis player. That's why I was thinking of something more like 30 seconds on and 60 seconds off, which more closely resembles points in a tennis match.

I've never played tennis, but I'd guess that playing tennis even more closely resembles the above?

[limitup]

Apparently not. All serious/pro tennis players do lots of cardio/HIIT from what I can tell.

[bbuszard]

I'm a tennis player. That's why I was thinking of something more like 30 seconds on and 60 seconds off, which more closely resembles points in a tennis match.

Not my matches (though I'm far from elite). But the thought piqued my interest to check around the interwebs a bit. I did find a meta-study that breaks things down nicely for different surfaces and styles of play:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2653871/

I recall an interview with Gil Reyes when he was Agassi's strength coach where he said, if memory serves, that the average point was 6 strokes. That's roughly comparable to the study, which found that all-court play produced points of about 8 seconds. Combine that with the very loosely enforced Grand Slam limit of 20 seconds between points and you have approximately a 2:5 ratio.

[Mugaaz]

I'll admit to to being in the dark about this. I don't get when people only manipulate rest periods as a variable, do you think you can directly work on increased recovery rate by having less time to recover? This logic doesn't seem great to me. You can apply stress, recover from it, and get an adaptation in the process. How can you "recover harder" through force of will? Isn't the increased recovery the result of the body recovering from each interval, and not by the amount of time you give it to rest? It seems to me that by using shorter rest periods, all you're really doing is lowering the average intensity per interval. I understand using shorter rest periods when you are running into a time limit for the most volume you can fit in to a workout, but HIIT takes like 10-30mins max to begin with.

[CJ Gotcher]

I've been enjoying the 1:5 HIIT because it doesn't interfere with my training the next day and because I can really dig in and tear it up during that :20 (can't do that doing Tabata- the rest period's just not long enough for me to regenerate that level of intensity).

If you're training energy systems for tennis, though, and not lifting, specificity's your ticket, I think- recreate your game intervals as closely as possible.

[MBasic]

I would say the opposite (mimicking/simulating work/rest cycles of a match). 6 rounds of 30/60 is supposed to emulate a match??? whereas he might go through hundreds of "rounds" of work rest in a real match.....just my two cents as I'm no expert....but he's going to get some "that" conditioning from playing/practicing tennis. As far as a dedicated HIIT session, might as well go balls to the wall with the 15-20 sec work with 90-120 sec complete rests....completely overload all energy systems....

[Nate7out]

IIRC Jordan uses 20 secs. because that is the longest time you can actually sprint at some very high almost 100% level. Longer times with lower force production are not the same type of conditioning. The rest period is similar. If you don't rest enough you get lower force production.