Hill Sprints or Bike Intervals for Fat Loss

If you want to burn more calories should you do interval sprints up a hill or interval training on a bike? It depends - on both your goals and your health.

Running interval hill sprints or interval sprints on a flat surface is a great way to burn fat. Part of the fat burning effect comes from doing intense training with your large muscle groups - such as your legs and hips, and also from your chest and back.

This type of training burns a lot of calories and can keep your metabolism elevated for several hours after you are done exercising. Basically, you are doing a lot of work in a fairly short period of time.

Whether you are doing interval sprints or interval weight training, you get more work done without resting very long in between sets or sprints. You are obviously working fairly intensely when doing this.

Sprints can be hard on your joints if you have had past injuries or are past 40, such as myself. So they can help jump start your metabolism, but may need to be used sparingly to save your joints from all the pounding.

Since I live in Iowa, where it is cold and snowy for the Winter and sometimes wet and rainy - like the flood of 2008 - inside training is necessary, and this is where interval training on a stationary bike comes into play.

They are both very effective for fat loss, more effective than doing long, slow cardio exercise. So you can use either one or do both, depending on how healthy you are and whether you can get outdoors to exercise.

Right now it is Summer time and I like to be outside as much as possible, so I will do some interval training on my mountain bike. I will ride faster for periods of time and then coast or pedal slower, and then ride faster again.

So my training will change depending on what time of year it is. In the Winter I was doing more interval sled training because I couldn't be outside. I have a place that I can do interval sled pushes for about 20 yards before turning around.

Depending on how much weight is on the sled I will do shorter or longer pushes or sprints, depending on whether I am training for strength or fat loss. Because of past injuries, this is easier than lifting heavy barbells. Its also a lot of fun........ ya, ya I know I'm a bit of a sadist to consider this fun, but it gets results.