You need less than 40 minutes to build lean muscle, increase your metabolism, and boost your mental strength.
High-intensity interval training, or HIIT for short, isn’t just a fitness “fad.” This hard-but-effective style of training has been named one of the top five fitness trends in the world for the past seven consecutive years in an annual survey by the American College of Sports Medicine.
And for good reason: HIIT works, and it works fast. Research shows that short bouts of intense exercise can improve your cardio capacity, boost your fat-burning capabilities, and even better your cognitive function in less time than slogging through a steady-state workout.
That’s why Tonal created the new Power HIIT workouts. By using HIIT principles and pairing them with your power and range of motion insights found only on Tonal, these workouts coach you to put more effort, intensity, and intent into your training to yield greater results over time. By leveraging this smarter way to train, you can consistently nail down new personal records, unlock training achievements, and push past plateaus. Here’s everything you need to know about the new Power HIIT classes.
What is Power HIIT?
Tonal Power HIIT is a high-intensity interval training workout that builds lean muscle, increases your metabolism, and improves your resilience to stressors in under 40 minutes.
And as with all Tonal workouts, it’s tailored to your experience level. “It personalizes power and makes it accessible to everyone at every level,” explains John Christie, director of curriculum at Tonal. “In Power HIIT, we’re calling members to move with greater purpose and intent.”
So What Happens In A Power HIIT Class?
Each workout includes a short warm-up to prep your mind and muscles for action. Then you’ll move into three main blocks of work:
- RAMP: The ramp block bumps up the intensity of the workout with compound movements targeting the large, primary muscles and preparing you for the challenges to come in the following blocks.
- POWER: The power block focuses on lifting with sustained power to build strength endurance. During this phase, you’ll maximize the effort (power) in each rep and maintain that effort through each set. This block features compound and isolated movements you’re already familiar with so you have the confidence to move with proper form and throw down everything you’ve got. Along the way, your coach will guide you to find your own personal best effort.
- BURN: The burn block, which consists of fast-paced HIIT exercises to tap every ounce of energy in reserve, is a high-intensity finisher that increases your time under tension and demands a hard effort, often from accessory muscles that helped with earlier movements. This is where you push to exhaustion, breaking down muscle fibers so you can build them back up and return stronger than before.
Finally, you’ll perform a short cooldown to lower your heart rate, re-center your focus, and move on with the rest of your day.
What Are the Benefits of Power HIIT?
The Power HIIT format helps you recruit more muscles in less time, increasing your overall calorie burn and strength development without dedicating hours to training. You’ll also boost your general fitness and cardiovascular function as your heart and lungs become better prepared for the varying demands of this training style with more practice.
One key reason is that the POWER block better trains type-II muscle fibers, which are responsible for coordinated, explosive movements, boosting your average power. And our data backs this up: Exercises performed during POWER blocks yielded a 33-percent increase in average power compared to the same exercises performed during other parts of the workout. Training explosive muscles in this way improves your athletic reactivity and increases your metabolism throughout the session and beyond.
On Tonal, you’ll get immediate feedback on your performance rep by rep. The power graph will show your power output in real time, while the Form Feedback technology will identify and recommend small improvements in form, technique, pattern, and effort with every exercise. This ensures you learn and master moves quickly, which makes the workout even more efficient because you’ll waste no time or energy on ineffective work.
The benefits aren’t just purely physical, either. As the Power HIIT workout introduces challenges of varying demands, you’ll develop the mental strength required to put your all into every rep in any condition. And you won’t do it alone. “The coaches help members find a way through the challenge, helping craft a strategy for each session,” adds Christie.
Should I Try Power HIIT?
Definitely. So long as you’re cleared for high-intensity interval training, you can get in on the fun.
Power HIIT is the perfect workout for busy, athletic-minded members who seek efficient training. This style of workout will teach you more about your performance in training so it’s great for former athletes or anyone who appreciates the qualities that make up sport and performance and are looking for ways to bring that into their own lives.
Just remember that high-intensity is a hard effort—like, really hard. Prepare yourself to throw down and get to work. In order to reap the benefits of this style of training in less time, you need to really push yourself to the max during work intervals and recover during rest periods.
“It’s not about being the strongest and most explosive athlete in the moment,” says Christie, “it’s about being your strongest.”