In a recent webinar, Club Industry educated club operators on the best practices in interval training, as well as the physiology behind high-intensity group exercise that makes your members feel good and see results.
More Than A Trend
Most of today’s health club operators know that high intensity interval training (HIIT) training is much more than a simple trend or a buzz phrase. If implemented properly, high-intensity group exercise can diversify your brand, your revenue and, most importantly, keep your members happy and coming back for more.
Yet, properly implementing a HIIT program can be tricky. To achieve long-lasting success with HIIT, club operators must not only understand the best practices in interval training, but also grasp the physiology at play that makes members feel good and see results.
Delivering Through Data
Sponsored by Les Mills, Club Industry’s free webinar —”HIIT – Creating Safe and Effective Programs that Generate Results and Revenue,” – Jinger Gottschall delivers a thorough, data-driven presentation on all things HIIT.
Webinar attendees learned:
- What really is HIIT?
- What are the physiological benefits of HIIT?
- How do you start a HIIT program for your club?
- What is the ideal time and intensity for weekly HIIT sessions?
- What other factors (nutrition, sleep, stress) influence the quality of HIIT training?
Gottschall holds a doctoral degree in integrative physiology and is the founder of FITOLOGY, a group fitness studio in State College, Pennsylvania, USA.
At FITOLOGY, Gottschall doesn’t hesitate to advertise HIIT’s many benefits.
In her presentation, she uses research data to demonstrate that HIIT can lead to boosts in vigour, self-esteem and total sleep time and sleep quality, while diminishing one’s sense of tension, confusion and total mood disturbance.
Balance And Prescription
Finding the right balance with HIIT can be as much of a challenge for club operators as it is for their members.
Gottschall prescribes a specific weekly HIIT formula to her clients:
- two high-intensity sessions
- two or three strength sessions (never back to back)
- two to three moderately intense cardio sessions and
- one flexibility session.
Warmups are one aspect of HIIT that Gottschall believes many trainers overlook. She recommends a three- to-five-minute integrated warmup at the beginning of every session.
The warmup should be fairly intense and can dictate intensity for the rest of the session, she said.
Gottschall recommends that trainers administer the longest intervals (90 seconds to three minutes) early in a HIIT ession in order to boost members’ heart rates. Tuck jumps are one of her favorite exercises that can elevate heart rates early in a session, she said.
Gottschall often imagines her clients on an X-Y-Z coordinate axis and tries to ensure they’re exercising in every direction—vertically, laterally, etc.
“Helping [clients] understand the ‘why’ [behind HIIT] is huge in getting them in the door,” Gottschall said. “If you can get them into that [heart-rate] zone, there is a little bit of magic with respect to what [HIIT] will create physiologically, and the feelings they have after are really something that keeps them coming back and is unlike no other.”
The “HIIT – Creating Safe and Effective Programs that Generate Results and Revenue,” webinar is available on demand here:
Article originally published in Club Industry by Anthony Dominic. Anthony is a regular content provider for Club Industry covering industry news.
This article is featured in the new Summer Edition of the What’s New in Fitness Magazine.
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