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Below are my recommendations based on my interpretation of the available evidence. These recommendations for incorporating HIIT in your training depend on your current fitness goals.
* For sedentary people, HIIT is probably more effective in building initial fitness than Continuous Moderate Exercise. Three sessions per week of [[#Wingate| Wingate]] HIIT on a stationary bike should provide an improvement in fitness for a modest time commitment. Using [[#WinTab| WinTab]] style HIIT may produce similar benefits for a lower time commitment.
* For people looking to lose weight, HIIT will probably produce a greater reduction in body fat than Continuous Moderate Exercise. Three sessions per week of Wingate HIIT on a stationary bike should help with weight loss [[Weight Loss]] and appetite control. The HIIT could be combined with other forms of exercise on the other days, which may further improve weight loss. (HIIT probably more effective than Continuous Moderate Exercise at improving insulin sensitivity.)
* Recreationally active people looking for rounded fitness may benefit from including HIIT in their overall training program. Adding 1-3 sessions per week of Wingate or WinTab HIIT on a stationary bike should provide an improvement in fitness.
* Athletes focused on improving their performance in endurance races lasting less than an hour will probably benefit from replacing some of their training load with a combination of both traditional HIIT and shorter Wingate or WinTab style HIIT. Up to one traditional HIIT or 1-3 shorter HIIT sessions could be included in a weekly training routine. Care should be taken to increase [[TRIMP| Training Load]] slowly with the additional HIIT and try to avoid increasing [[Training Monotony]]. The traditional HIIT should be performed by running on a track or other outdoor location. For the shorter HIIT, a stationary bike probably has a lower injury risk, but the additional benefits of outdoor running may outweigh the additional injury risk. However, the fast paces of the shorter HIIT should be introduced gradually, building up the pace over a number of workouts.
* Lowest risk of injury.
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* The bike does use the same muscles [[Muscle]]s as running.
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| Bike
92% [[Maximum Heart Rate|HR<sub>max</sub>]]
| Time to exhaustion increased 65%
[[Running economy Economy]] improved 0.9%
| rowspan="3"|
Continuous High Intensity
94% [[Maximum Heart Rate|HR<sub>max</sub>]]
| Time to exhaustion increased 67%
[[Running economy Economy]] improved 3.0%
|-
| '''Continuous High Intensity'''
93% [[Maximum Heart Rate|HR<sub>max</sub>]]
| Time to exhaustion increased 94%
[[Running economy Economy]] improved 3.1%
|-
| rowspan="2"|
45 workouts over 15 weeks
| '''HIIT'''
60x 8 seconds 'all out', 12 seconds rest (5 min [[Warmup]], 20 min conditioning, 5 min cooldown[[Cooldown]])
| Increased [[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>peak]] 24%
5 pound/2.5 Kg reduction in body fat
* 5 state level middle distance runners that underwent 4 weeks of HIIT training reduced their 3K time by 2.8% (10:16 to 9:59) and [[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>max]] by 4.9% (61 to 64)<ref name="Smith-1999"/>. The HIIT training consisted of 2 sessions per week of 6 intervals at 100% [[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>max]] with time varying between 60-75% [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]], plus one weekly run of 30 min at 60% v[[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>max]]. For these runners, [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]] averaged 225 seconds, so the intervals were between 135 and 170 seconds.
* Well trained, competitive runners trained twice a week for four weeks with intervals at 100% [[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>max]] for either 6x 60% [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]] (133 sec) or 5x 70% (154 sec) [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]], resting for twice the interval time. Their 3K time improved by 17.6 sec (60% [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]]) or 6.3 sec (70% [[vVO2max|T<sub>lim</sub>]]), but there was no change in their 5K time<ref name="Smith-2003"/>.
* 41 elite ([[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>peak]] ~65) cyclists and triathletes were split into four groups, with three groups using the HIIT described below and the fourth acting as a control that followed only low to moderate intensity training<ref name="Laursen-3-2002"/>. Note that groups 1 and 2 vary only in their rest time, which is based on heart rate [[Heart Rate]] dropping to 65% of [[Maximum Heart Rate|HR<sub>max</sub>]] in group 2 (averaging around 180 seconds). This was a demanding regime, as the subjects reached exhaustion on nearly every HIIT training session, with '''only 64% of the dictated intervals actually completed'''. Note that like comparison of different workouts above, the shorter HIIT produced a similar improvement in 40K performance without the accompanying rise in [[VO2max|V̇O<sub>2</sub>max]] which was not statistically different between group 3 and the controls.
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! Group