If you are trying to learn how to build muscle with HIIT then you may have noticed how much confusion surrounds this popular training method. Despite it's huge popularity, many people make some crucial mistakes when designing their high intensity interval program.

Of course, we are talking about nutrition. In fact it is the pre-workout period of nutrition which we will be discussing in more depth today because this is the area which many people don't pay any attention to at all.

Before you workout you need to ensure that your body has been supplied with the best nutrients to perform the tough session ahead. If you do this then you can potentially increase your results by up to 30%, so it is worth taking a few moments to look into the latest science on the subject. [
See the top 5 types of hiit sessions and what they are designed for.
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The first thing you must do to get the right nutrients before a hard workout is look at which energy source you'll be using in your session. While long, steady-state cardiovascular workouts tend to slowly chip away at your body's fat storage, intervals do not do this. Instead, they mainly use your glycogen (carb) stores.

As you may already be aware, interval training's real benefits begin when you shut the gym door behind you as you leave. Your body enters a process called EPOC, also known as the afterburn effect by many trainers. This is where your body has lost so much of it's carbohydrate resources that it begins to shield what's left and instead uses your fat stores to provide you with energy. You guessed it, this results in increased fat burning and the phenomenon can go on for fourteen hours if you do thing effectively.

As you can see, what we want to be doing in the gym is depleting your carb resources as quickly as possible so that we can force the body to enter the afterburn effect immediately when you finish working out. So, for this very reason, it would be foolish to eat a big bowl of oatmeal before you trained.

Does this mean all of those people who insist on training first thing in the morning on an empty stomach are actually onto something?

Not quite. While you should look to avoid heavy carbohydrate sources before you train, you can actually increase your results if you use protein as this will work to protect your lean muscle tissue from being burnt off during an intense training. This means not only will you lose fat, you'll also hang onto and maybe even build more lean muscle tissue!

There are also many people who like using branched chain amino acids around their workouts. While this supplement is perfectly fine, there are better ways to do this. First of all, essential amino acids provide a better return than BCAA's as they include all of the amino acids which the body cannot naturally produce, rather than just the three which are more involved in building muscle. So look to replace your BCAA product with a reputable EAA supplement.

Secondly, science tells us that consuming your amino acids before your workout yields up to 30% higher uptake into the muscles, so ignore the common trend of mixing it with your post-workout protein shake. The perfect pre-workout cocktail before a high intensity interval training session would consist of around 15 grams of whey protein and a serving of essential amino acids.

The topic of HIIT is as popular now as it has ever been in the past, but learning how to build muscle or lose weight with this approach often comes down to your nutrition plan surrounding those tough workouts. Now you have the key scientific research on the crucial pre-workout period, you'll be able to take your own results one step further.




About the Author:
By Russ Howe




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