All Pain, No Gain! Don't Get Sucked Into the Exercise Black Hole

HIIT isn't always your friend

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Hello, readers

Most people never consider that cardio could be bad for you.

But it can. Have you heard of the Workout Black Hole?

Dr. Stephen Seiler, a sports scientist, is the one who started calling it the workout black hole. He refers to workouts that are done at too high of a heart rate, for too long. Your body isn’t thriving in this zone. You’re sabotaging your efforts because not only do you not get the aerobic effect you were looking for, but you aren’t going hard enough in short bursts for it to count as a sprint, either.

Chronic cardio workouts quite often fall into the black hole. It could be that you aren’t making any gains to your fitness at all. You might even be going backward as you amp up your cortisol levels and work until your ass falls off. If your muscles get damage that you never have time to repair, this chronic exercise builds up an injury deficit. Then, you might “suddenly” pull a muscle or hurt yourself.

But it wasn’t sudden. It was the result of too many chronic cardio black hole workouts.

This especially applies to instructor-led group fitness classes or running/ cycling groups. Our competitive side can come out, or we might be afraid of looking weaker than the maniac beside us, who is obviously in better shape. The pressure to keep up means that you feel the need to push your poor body past its limits.

Boot-camp type classes are the ones I’m thinking of. Don’t get me wrong. These classes can be great! Over a month or two, you can push your body and really see some changes.

The problem lies in doing this kind of exercise repeatedly, month after month.

Once, I joined my wife’s exercise group. They met three times a week and had been for a few years. I thought the workouts would be a good addition to my running.

It was all women in their mid-thirties to early forties. Except me, and there was no way I would let these ladies show me up. So, I put myself in the black hole.

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“Ten more seconds! Push, push, push! And that’s it for that cardio interval. Okay, relax and take a sip of water!”

Our trainer was really hammering it to us today. She was chipper and smiling as she ground us into the dirt. We had just completed our third set of 30 seconds of lizard climbers. It’s like mountain climbers but worse.

I was out of oxygen and dripping wet.

Next up, alternating bicep curls for 60 seconds, followed by 30 seconds of jumping jacks, then a rest, then more curls, and then more jumping jacks. All of these jumping jacks meant my heart was jackhammering.

A three-second rest— just to make sure we’re still alive. Then, on to the next sixty-second set of a weighted exercise, followed by thirty seconds of cardio. This time, it’s skull crushers and skipping rope.

Why did I agree to do this?

“All right! Great job, guys. That’s it for the sets.” She sounded pretty happy this morning. “Oh, wait. We still need to do our core work!” She bounced over to grab her mat. Why is she so excited about core work? I think she must be a sadist.

She quickly set us up to do thirty seconds of supermans (superwomans?) followed by reverse crunches, and then topped off with some bicycle crunches. After three sets of each, I was a limp noodle of pain. We did some stretches to cool down, a high five, and we were finally done.

There was a puddle of water in the small of my back, and I felt like I needed a new body.

I was tired and questioning my life choices.

The focus of these workouts was High-Intensity Interval Training. The idea was to have intense periods of cardiovascular exercise, with slower periods and short rests, and go until near exhaustion. A typical HIIT workout is around half an hour. It was supposed to be a good way to get in a time-saving workout with big returns.

The biggest return for me was that it sucked my will to live.

I was being drained of energy and then not getting it back. I mean NOT getting it back, ever. I couldn’t lift my feet properly or climb stairs without wincing.

Ah, the pain. Things were stiff and sore by afternoon. I went to sleep aching and woke up barely able to move. Every day I was crippled, walking hunched over like a 200-year-old dude.

I never recovered before the next workout. I went in at half throttle because that was all I had left.

After seven weeks, I was feeling too sore to go out for a run. I just couldn’t keep both up. So I decided to cut the HIIT and keep my running and yoga instead.

Those ladies earned my respect. I gave up after seven weeks. They’ve been doing this training plan for years.

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The Workout Black Hole Doesn’t Burn Fat, It Burns Sugar

The only goal of working out is not burning fat, of course. But people are attracted to HIIT for that resaon. They were told it will burn fat. And maybe it will for some people.

Working at such an elevated heart rate is anaerobic exercise, and it prevents you from burning fat efficiently because it promotes glucose burning. Not only during the workout, but all day. For those explosive bursts of energy, you need glycogen. This is going to give you cravings and hunger, so you’ll probably tank up on all kinds of unsupportive foods or eat extra portions.

So, you aren’t burning fat, which is the purported mission of most of the people doing HIIT.

If my wife’s exercise group was getting what it wanted from these workouts, they would have all been at their goal weights (unrealistic or not). Or they would have been able to lift more, or run farther. But they just weren’t making much progress.

I asked my wife once, does your trainer help you set goals beyond weight loss? The answer was, no.

True aerobic workouts could let you burn at least some fat while you exercise. This would improve both your aerobic endurance as well as your fat metabolism at rest.

You’re in that black hole zone, throwing all your pain in the pit. And you aren’t getting the benefits you think you are.

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Most HIIT Workouts Aren’t Real HIIT

The real HIIT deal is a very short workout.

It might be something like twenty seconds of all-out effort and ten seconds rest, or one minute of full sprint-like work and one minute of total rest. The entire workout could last from four to ten minutes. Tops.

The intent was never to work your ass off so hard for thirty minutes to an hour so that your cortisol levels are through the roof, every muscle has microtears, and you won’t be able to climb stairs for a week.

“Ok, Tim. So HIIT workouts aren’t the best. What should I do if I want cardio? Are you just going to rip the illusions from me and leave me stranded in no-exercise land?”

Of course not. Next week, I will talk about the type of exercise that will build endurance and work FOR you rather than against you.