The ‘V-snap’ is part of Tiffiny Hall’s HIIT routine.

HIIT gives you a great after burn effect, so you burn calories while doing the exercise and then all day.

Interval training promotes an excess post-exercise oxygen consumption response in your body, which refers to the amount of oxygen needed by your body to recover from the exercise. This extra oxygen gives love to your sore muscles for up to 48 hours after exercise, building the tissue stronger and better able to handle exercise before.

Did you know for every 1kg of extra lean muscle on your body you can burn up to 400 extra calories? The muscles are your fat furnace. This whole process requires heaps of energy, primarily from burning reserves of body fat — yay for that!

• Boosts metabolism all the damn day long

• You can do an hour’s workout in 20 minutes

HOW TO DO IT?

The idea is simple: less total time required to make a big change, more bang for your buck. HIIT burns more calories during and after a workout than continuous aerobic training. The bursts of intensity increase the caloric expenditure so you burn more calories in total making you leaner.

You are working to your max for 20-30 seconds, repeating the pattern 5-10 times for anywhere between 4 minutes and 20 minutes as you become more fit.

You can do a 1:1 work to rest ratio for example 30 seconds of flat out hard work and 30 seconds of chill time. Or some people argue a 1:2 or even 1:4 rest recovery works best. Totally up to you and your fitness level and goals. Tabata is a fave of mine and that’s a 2:1 work recovery interval. See, no way you can get bored, so many ways to mix up your training!

For me, unlike steady state cardio, HIIT is exciting and fun! It’s all part of staying happyfit!

TIPS:

1. Your HIIT workout includes compound exercises that use all your big muscles, because replenishing these babies takes more energy and you’ll burn more fat. Include squats, burpees (or burpyays), thrusters, kicks and punches. You want to use your back, core and legs as much as possible.

Kicks are included in the HIIT routine.Source:Supplied

2. Your body is a smart machine so it will adapt quickly. Change up your HIIT workouts regularly. Increase the intensity of the HIIT workout or the duration of the intervals as you become more fit. For example, start at 20 second intervals, build to 30 seconds then 40 seconds.

3. Always warm up and cool down after your workout to prevent injuries. The key word in HIIT is ‘intensity’ so there’s going to be a bit of stress on your muscles and you’ll need to take recovery into account and give yourself a cuddle after every session.

4. Aim for 3-4, 20 minute HIIT workouts a week with recovery days in-between.

5. Try using an app to record reps or heart rate monitor or fitness tracker to mark your progress. Aim for new PBs.

6. If you’re cruising through a 2-minute interval. Well, you’re not pushing hard enough in the “work” phase. The aim is to push with max effort for as hard as you can for 1 minute tops and rest until your heart rate lowers. Your body should be begging you to stop!

7. 10 seconds is the least you can do for an interval. But if it’s a shortie interval then you better bang out more reps and beat your reps the next round. Plus it’d be ideal to do more rounds. Say 20 x 10 second rounds with 20 seconds rest in-between.

8. Add some bounce!

9. Add some resistance. If you want to tackle HIIT it’s best to strengthen those key muscles groups so they don’t let you down in the intervals — I’m talking to you legs, back and core. I love to mix up my resistance training with intervals to boosts my metabolism. So I’ll do a set of 12 thrusted then complete a 60 second sprint.

Jab cross punches will get the arms burning.Source:Supplied

I have my own wellness program TIFFXO (the next program starts on Monday, January 9) and my version of HIIT is called TKD HIIT — Taekwondo high intense interval training.

An example of a TIFFXO HIIT workout that peeps can do anywhere with no equipment is as follows:

Warm up for 5 minutes skipping on and off and stretching

Move 1: 20 seconds of speed skipping

20 seconds rest

Move 2: 20 seconds of V snaps

20 seconds rest

Move 3: 20 seconds of tiff squats

20 seconds rest

Move 4: 20 seconds of jab cross punches

20 seconds rest

Move 5: 20 seconds of judo push-ups

20 seconds rest

Move 6: 20 seconds of burpyays

20 seconds rest

Move 7: 20 seconds of push-ups with claps

20 seconds rest

Move 8: 20 seconds of fighter get ups.

1 minute total recovery.

Repeat 3 rounds in total.