HIIT: or How I learned to Stop Worrying and How to Love the Treadmill

[The Tin Man]

If this is in the wrong spot, blame my noob status.

So today was my first time doing HIIT. It was on a treadmill. And it was a revelation. It was fun! I enjoy running but on a treadmill it's a mental battle. Today I was literally sticking out my tongue in excited anticipation of the sprinting session. Of course by the end I was dreading the end of the rest period (I did 1 minute surge, 2 minutes rest) because I knew I shouldn't stop until I was that spent.

Key moment: feeling excited about the next surge while looking down to see I had been going for 15 minutes. If I were just going at a constant clip for 15 minutes I would have been slugging it out at that point. I feel an adrenaline surge just remembering it.

I just wanted to share my excitement somewhere, HIIT is great!

[m00se]

Nice! I quite enjoy doing intervals on my exercise bike. At least I did when I was doing intervals at about the same intensity as you are - I have since started doing semi-Tabata (20sec on/20sec off) and it makes me hate the damn thing - so I'm tempted to go on back to the way I was doing it. But I know what you mean - it's good to get excited about the hard work part

I still find myself feeling more excited about lifting really heavy things, though, but I know that the intervals are doing my heart and legs a load of good and so I stick with it

[StarShine1975]

I just got home from my first HIIT on the treadmill and I felt the same way! I was always a sprinter, even in high school. I hated long distance anything. I wanted to go from A to B and get it over with as fast as possible. I was able to do 45 sec surge and 1.5 min rest. And like you I was having fun for the first time ever on a treadmill. No headphones to distract me, no having to stare at the tv and zoning out. Completely focused on my time and balance, didn't want to fly off the the thing!

[The Tin Man]

I'm glad someone else had this experience! I had my second session last night and it was not as fun, though I still got through it 100%. It got hard at the end fighting to not go flying off! That is probably because I did a decent lifting-with-legs workout the day before and was still sore. I also tried to up the incline from 0 to 1 with the mindset of pushing myself a little harder every workout to never let myself get comfortable.

I definitely enjoy long runs outside where I get to soak in the sights and sounds, but for treadmills I am quickly realizing that HIIT is the way to go. It reminds me of hill courses in high school cross country, sprinting up hills but jogging in between.