Lately I have been doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for my cardio sessions.  I have been doing this on the spinning bike and it’s been really intense.

I have been doing 45 seconds of high intensity followed by 90 seconds of recovery.  I typically do this for about 20 minutes, but I plan to work up to about 30 minutes.  For the higher intensity part, I increase the resistance and also peddle faster.  I downloaded a stopwatch application for my phone (T-Mobiel G1), which has helped keep the timing right.  Unfortunately, the application doesn’t do interval timing automatically, but I just stop, reset, and start at each intensity transition.

This type of cardio session is highly effective for burning calories and revving up the metabolism.  It’s also much more fun than doing slow cardio for over an hour.  I get bored with the long cardio sessions.