There is a way for you to lose weight fast on a treadmill. It’s called HIIT. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. The great thing about HIIT is that your workouts are shorter, but the weight falls off faster. HIIT is also fun to do on a treadmill because it’s interesting and you can change up your workout routine.

The news of HIIT started circulating among treadmill owners over a decade ago after a study came out reporting how much weight, or fat, could be lost doing HIIT. Once treadmill owners saw the results themselves, HIIT began spreading like wildfire. The study was done over a five month period of time involving two groups of people. The first group did normal steady cardio for 45 minutes. This group began their study exercising at 60% of their maximum heart rate and worked up to 85% before the study was concluded.

Group two would start their routine by elevating their heart rates to 70% of their maximum heart rate. They would then follow this up with ten seconds of less intense exercise that decreased their heart rates, and then a 90 second burst of intense exercise that increased their heart rate, again. This was followed up with an interval of exercise that brought their heart rate back down. This HIIT routine was done over and over throughout their workout.

Conclusions of the study found that the participants doing the HIIT, group two, spent less time and energy working out, but they lost three times more body fat than group one. Another important finding was the fat that group two lost was primarily subcutaneous fat, or the fat that lies directly beneath the skin.

So what makes HIIT so powerful for weight loss? After doing HIIT a person’s body goes into what is known as EPOC, or Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption. EPOC is what your body does when it needs more oxygen to return to a resting state. This means after doing HIIT your body is using more oxygen and burning more calories even hours after your workout is completed. One study that was done in 2002 reported that there was an elevated resting metabolic rate in participants even 48 hours later.

Treadmill owners love doing HIIT because it works for so many of them. The added bonus is doing HIIT on a treadmill lets people have a fun workout quickly. HIIT routines are intense, but they should last no more than 20 to 30 minutes. Start your workout warming up to your maximum heart rate range, then cycle in and out of lower heart rate zones and then raise your heart rate back up to it maximum rate, again. Repeat this throughout your workout doing as many, or as few, intervals as you like.

While HIIT is a very popular way to lose weight fast with treadmills, keep in mind that it is not recommend that you do HIIT more than two or three days a week. HIIT works and it does put your body under stress. You shouldn’t do HIIT day after day. But, don’t feel like you are cheating. Your body is still burning fat and calories long after your workout is over!