EP10, HIIT vs. Traditional Strength Training

In this episode of Unstoppable By Design, host Matt Terry and guest expert Dr. Lis Rosencrum from Juggernaut Fitness delve into the pros and cons of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) versus traditional strength training. They discuss definitions, benefits, program design, and how to choose the right style based on individual goals, schedules, and recovery needs. The episode also includes myth-busting rapid-fire questions about training methods and practical advice for incorporating both modalities into various fitness routines. Perfect for anyone looking to gain clarity on optimizing their workout strategy.

00:00 Introduction to Unstoppable By Design

00:18 HIIT vs. Traditional Strength Training

01:26 Defining Strength Training and HIIT

03:00 Personal Experiences with Training Styles

04:19 Programming and Class Structures

05:22 Variables in Strength and HIIT Workouts

08:51 Time Commitment and Periodization

11:36 Hypertrophy and Fat Loss

14:04 Strength Building and Nervous System Impact

16:18 Injury Risks and Scheduling for Busy Lives

18:20 Favorite Hybrid Workouts and Sports Season Training

21:19 Rapid Fire Myth Busting

26:16 Unstoppable Challenge and Conclusion

Transcript

Matt: Let's Goooo! Welcome to Unstoppable By Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today we're pitting two heavy hitters, head to head, high intensity interval training or HIITs versus traditional strength training.

To keep the bout fair and the facts straight, I've got Juggernaut Fitness' head coach Dr. Lis Rosencrum in my corner. She's an athletic trainer, strength coach and PhD who can program a deadlift cycle in her sleep and still smoke you in a five round EMOM before breakfast Together, we'll break down what each style actually is.

Not the HIIT or high intensity interval training is just burpees until you puke, when to choose one over the other, based on your goals, schedule, and recovery bandwidth, and seven of the juiciest myths for myth busting. Whether you're chasing bigger numbers on the barbell, a faster mile or simply a smarter plan, this episode will arm you with the clarity to train on purpose.

Grab your notepad and let's dive in. So Lis, how are you? 

Lis: I'm doing all right. How are you doing? 

Matt: I'm doing pretty good. All right. Well, hit us with a quick definition. What exactly is traditional strength training in your coaching vocabulary? 

Lis: I think traditional strength training is a number of things.

I think for the simplest way to think about it is really you have a, some specific strength goals in mind, and you have what we would call cycles programmed and then also implemented. That gets you closer to that, so pretty much prescriptive. Testing plus maybe percentage work or effort based work to get you closer to whatever your strength goals are for the specific movements that you're 

working on.

Matt: Yeah, I like that. I like the percentage and the rate of perceived exertion or the RPE. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: How do you define HIIT so listeners don't confuse it with just working out really, really fast. 

Lis: So HIIT is also a lot of things and it is more focus on the intensity, hence the name. And, uh, and also that like work to rest ratio.

So we're really trying to hit a high intensity for shorter periods of time with a structured amount of rest to keep you in the. Targeted energy systems when we're thinking about human physiology. So we really are focusing kind of on the anaerobic side of things. Not exclusively obviously, 'cause that's not how physiology works, but that's the aim with the high intensity training.

Matt: I like that. Can you recall the first time you personally felt the aha power of each style? Strength and HIIT? 

Lis: Honestly, right now, I, uh, I, I kind of made a shift in my own. Training recently in the last few months, and I mean, physiology physi physiologically and, you know, academically I understand the differences, right?

But I'm now in a place where doing the high intensity was not really serving what my body needed. Every day. Right? And so I made a little bit of a shift a couple of months ago to really focusing more on strong lady stuff because that's bringing me more joy and it feels better for me at this moment.

But the cardio and other energy systems are incredibly important. And so my goal is to get a couple of conditioning days in and I'm really focusing mostly on HIIT and then also. Walking to kind of hit all of the energy systems and I feel the best I've felt in probably like at least five years.

Matt: That's awesome. 

Lis: By co combining, you know, and being very deliberate about how I'm getting all of those rather than just only focusing on one of them. 

Matt: Yeah. So you're Yeah, exactly. You're not pigeonholing into just one section. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: And we have a class that does that really well. Actually here at Juggernaut that kind of bridges the gap.

So people can go into our, you know, our flagship, our CrossFit style mm-hmm. Functional fitness classes and they can support it with the class. Do you actually write the programming for that class? 

Lis: The Endure classes? Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah, yeah. 

Lis: Yep. It's, uh, it's my, my baby. I really love the Endure classes.

We do a lot of, uh, quote unquote weird stuff. Um, 'cause we do weird stuff in life, strength wise. Right. But then we also hit the different energy systems. We get some long grinds, we get some. High intensity, short duration workouts, a lot of interval work and very specific strength progressions for different kinds of movements.

Matt: Yeah. So if you're somebody and you're in your fitness journey and we call it fitness journey 'cause there's not one program or one thing that's just king and best for you but if you're somebody in your journey, you're like, man, I felt stronger in some of these lifts when I was doing or supplementing with traditional strength training.

Sounds like Endure might be the program that to help you out. Yeah. Which would be great. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: What variables do you manipulate first when writing a classic strength session? Would it be something like reps, sets, or loads? 

Lis: Yes. All of them. Um, maybe not all at once. Right. I tend to, you know, when we think about why we make adjustments to programming, it's all about eliciting a response.

In the body, right? That's why we train because we want to elicit a response in our tissues ultimately. And so you can manipulate literally any one of those variables. And I try generally to do one, maybe two at a time, depending on how aggressive I'm being with the program, the folks that are doing the program, et cetera, based on their goals.

In the goals of the program and but manipulating all three, every single time we do things can, will probably often seem like a lot. So I tend to go a little bit more piecemeal. 

Matt: Yeah. 

And maybe if you're changing all three, it's not really following maybe a true progression, it's more of kind of like 

Lis: Yep.

Yeah, I think more of the like kind of varied programming that we do in some other, in like more CrossFit style stuff where the constantly varied is a hallmark. Component of it, right? And so yes, you do have progressions in CrossFit if you have some good programming. But you might one day do a set of 30 snatches because you love Isabelle, and then the next day you might be doing a heavier lift, right, at a higher percentage.

And so that's seemingly changing the sets, reps and load of whatever your lifts are. But it also does have a theoretical purpose. Yep. 

Matt: Yep. 

Now, when you program HIIT or HIIT workouts, what's the key dial that you change? Is it work to rest ratio or exercise selection? 

Lis: Yes. I'm gonna be saying that a lot today, I think.

So I think first up, to make it HIIT, you really need to have the right work to rest ratios. That's kind of like the, the benchmark to make it actually HIIT. The the work ratio, the work timeframe needs to be short because it needs to be intense. 'cause if we're saying it's a HIIT workout, but you have five minute intervals, that's not, you're not in the right energy system.

You know, it needs to be really far less than a minute. Like, your work, interval. And then your rest interval should be depending on your goals of your program. If you're looking for repeatable efforts, that rest ratio should be pretty long. But if you're looking for more along the traditional thought process of burpee, till you puke those, those those rest ratios might be a little bit shorter.

Kind of like a Tabata, right? And so. The other piece in terms of exercise selection I think that was the, yeah, exercise selection is important, but I don't think it's what necessarily what makes HIIT HIIT? I think it's important because if you've got really short work ratio works sections, then and it's a.

Hip thrust that takes you 10 seconds to get into. You've used up probably a quarter to a half of your work section. Yeah. Just trying to get under the damn barbell. Right. So, so trying to pick exercises that you can get into easily enough to make the work to rest ratio makes sense. 

Matt: Yeah, that makes sense.

What could somebody expect for a typical time commitment? How long should someone expect to be in the gym for a solid strength session versus maybe a HIIT blast? 

Lis: Mm-hmm. So I do strength training sessions for people in as little as 30 minutes. I think, you know, you can absolutely get some quality work in, in 30 minutes.

We have a number of clients on 30 minute programs and they're hitting goals all the time, you know, so they, uh. It's, it's definitely gotta be a little bit more deliberate, I think. You can't lolly gag 

Matt: maximizing time. 

Lis: Exactly. 

Um, all of us are busy, right. And, and so, but I think a lot of traditional strength training programs are more like 60 to 90 minutes per session.

And then HIIT, you know, including warmup. Those HIIT workouts should probably not be more than. I would say at very most 15, 20 minutes um, you know, so again, you could probably get a good one in, in 30 minutes with warmup and cool down. 

Matt: How do you periodize each style across a month? Do they coexist or do you cycle them?

Lis: Yes. Um, so, um, I at least for, I'm gonna use Endure as an example, since this is a good. Our Endure program is a place where I, we, I do very purposely program, both traditional strength training, cycling and HIIT workouts. And so some of the HIIT workouts might be a little seemingly random to kind of hit that constantly varied piece of it to give us those, those different movements and different stimuli to adapt to neurologically. That's incredibly important for for our neurology, especially if we've got people who are only in here a couple times a week. And then the the cycling really, I'd say right now, like, and this is just an example, I've got a HIIT cycle for running intervals.

Going on. 'Cause we have a very short running season here. Juggernaut Fitness in New Hampshire 

Matt: They said its summer. I dunno. 

Lis: I know it finally feels like summer, but it didn't for a while. And so I'm trying to do some intervals there because we can really kind of get some good bang for our buck.

Conditioning wise, out of those higher intensity intervals for running for the context of class and then for the strength training cycles, I, I've got kind of three movement combinations that I am cycling through that we, people, if they're hit, if they're getting to all of the Endure classes, they'll get a full 10 week cycle on all three of those.

Matt: Awesome. 

All right. If. hypertrophy, hypertrophy. I say the word right, hypertro. It's all good. Uh, is the goal, why does traditional strength work still win over pure HIIT? 

Lis: So generally in order to get into hypertrophy it's really a matter of getting the correct amount of strain or load over enough time.

Like we need, we need to create enough truly cellular damage in our muscle muscles to allow those to heal in and actually build muscle, right? So the HIIT side of things, because it's so much higher intensity, for the most part, we're not going to be pushing heavy enough load. You know, um, you, you, you kind of, you need to.

You need to push against something pretty hard for us to build some muscle against it. And if again it's all about like where you're starting too. If you've got somebody who's just starting out on their journey, they might build muscle and HIIT because they haven't been maybe doing that. Yep. But like somebody, like either of us who have been training for years we do HIIT for other reasons, not for the purposes of building muscle.

Matt: Yeah. Each one kind of serves its own Individual purpose. Now for fat loss or conditioning, where does HIIT really shine? 

Lis: I would say for conditioning. Absolutely. Again, that kind of bang for your buck time-wise, you can really get a lot of good cardiovascular benefit out of doing a short HIIT workout.

That's one of the reasons why it's so popular, right? Is like you can get a similar. I'm going to generalize a little bit, but a similar cardio and neurologic response out of a 15 minute HIIT workout as you would from, you know, maybe hours on the treadmill. Mm-hmm. You know, so it's cardiovascularly, specifically cardiovascularly, right.

So, there's that, I think for fat loss there's way, way, way more other. Issues to address there, including nutrition and nutrition, timing and all of that. And so while, yes, it is definitely possible with any training mm-hmm. Program it's more complex, I think than than just what the training program is.

Matt: Yeah. There's not, you can't just use one tool from the toolbox. Exactly. You use more. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: Alright. Can HIIT meaningfully build strength or does it mainly maintain what you have? 

Lis: So I'm gonna go back to kind of one of the things that I said in that last question in terms of, I think it partly depends on where you are at in your fitness journey.

Again, like if you're a novice and you're starting at, okay, I'm gonna give a theoretical scale that's a little bit hyperbolic, but like if you're starting at a one out of 10, right? Literally anything you're doing movement wise is probably gonna move the needle on strength and. Cardio, right? Whereas if you are, you've been training for years in a dedicated way you're gonna have to do a bit more focused training to move the needle in the way that you want to move it.

It's way harder to PR at anything once you've been doing this for a while than it was when you first started, right? That's true. So, um, so I think HIIT to be truly HIIT is not. Its strength is not in necessarily in building strength across the board, but maybe for our newer folks it could be. 

Matt: Yeah. Which style generally taxes the nervous system more per session.

And how do you factor that into rest days? 

Lis: I would say HIIT definitely taxes your nervous system more. That intensity can really take a toll. And I mean, and, and it's. That's part of its gift I think, in terms of training is that you need to have that kind of stimulation to your nervous system to be ready to take on intense exercise and, and heavier loads like that.

Training at that intensity is important for your nervous system. That said. The recovery is also just as important. So if you're somebody, and I think this is kind of where my change in my own training came from was I was realizing I wasn't recovering from my HIIT the same way in this phase of life as I once did.

And so I give myself a bit more recovery time and that's where I generally do like a HIIT type workout early in the week. I get a couple of strength days and a rest day, and then I do another HIIT type workout, and then I get a couple of strength days at a rest day. 

Matt: Yeah. So you're really paying attention to how you factor in those.

Those rest days around there. Alright, well, injury risk. Where do you see the biggest pitfalls for beginners in each camp? Could be HIIT or traditional strength training. 

Lis: First off, movement quality. If you're not moving safely, it doesn't matter what your load or intensity is, it's likely to cause you some issues.

The other pieces, I think one of the things I see, especially in group class. Environments is, um, kind of the, the ego lifting or the ego selection of style of movement or modification, right? We built to a heavy on a lift yesterday in class, and I definitely had some folks I had to reign in, you know, and that's okay.

Like, that's one of the reasons why we're here, right? To keep them safe and make sure that they're getting the safe movement in so that they can continue to move weight safely and grow and develop that strength and skillset. 

Matt: It's present in both. 

Lis: Yeah, absolutely. 

Matt: How can a busy parent squeeze both modalities into a three day a week schedule?

Lis: Mm. So I was also really excited about this question. I think it also depends on your goals. I think the I think fitting both into a three day cycle is incredibly important. To be a well-rounded human physiologically. That said, if you are someone who is really looking to build strength, maybe that looks like a strength day, a rest day, an interval day, high intensity interval day, and then another strength day.

If you're somebody who's looking more to improve, like maybe you wanna do your first Hyrox or something. Maybe you reverse that. Right? And you do a couple of HIIT days and you do one strength day in the middle or something like that. I think there's a lot of ways you can formulate it, but it's incredibly important to hit both.

Yeah. Yeah. If you are, are looking at trying to be a well-rounded mover 

Matt: Yeah, that's great. So there's not only one path that they can take, right? It just depends. Yep. What's your favorite strength HIIT hybrid workout you've actually used with clients? 

Lis: Ooh. I think one of my favorite ones that I do is I and I've done a couple variations of this.

I actually do a kind of pyramid style. Er workout and the machine will change, you know, 'cause I change it up for my folks. But basically it's like they start a minute on an ERG bike, rower ski. 'cause that's what we have in our gym at like a five RPE. Right? And then I'll ask them to do some strength-based movement kind, kind of like a super set, but not, I want them to move for quality, you know, like I want them to be.

Breathy, but moving for quality through their strength movement. Right. And they're, I, I generally am going to prescribe them a weight that I know is well within their their range in terms of like doable. Percentages. And then I'll have them go back on the erg. We do like a little active recovery for like to hit the rest interval, right?

Then we go back on the erg, bump up that intensity a little bit. I usually do like a 5, 6, 7, so it's not truly, truly high, high intensity. But I generally use it for the purpose of like getting their heart rate up and then asking them to do some strength-based movement. That's awesome. It's fun. It's a favorite.

Matt: It's fun. 

Lis: It's fun for me. 

Matt: For athletes who are in sports season, which modality tends to compliment their practice volume better. 

Lis: So again, I think this kind of depends on what their sport is. You know, if they are a I'm gonna use something really like two kind of extremes, like if they're a wrestler versus a, Archer, you know? Yeah. Like their energy systems are incredibly different. Right. And so, and in you know, in archery, I, okay. Full disclosure, I don't know a lot about training archers. Fair? Fair. I have not trained any archers, but yeah, based on what I know of the physiology. Okay. Like they could probably hit some pretty intense workouts.

Along with what they're doing sport specific training for. And I would say they probably need to do their sport specific training first and then do their higher intensity work afterward. Right. So then they can recover before their next sport specific training session. Just because of the need for all of the.

The focus and neurologic, you know, you get the shakes when you work real hard. Right. We don't want that with archery. 

Matt: Yea you need 

accuracy. 

Lis: Yeah, exactly. 

Um, wrestling, they hit that intensity, the entirety pretty much of their sport work, like, practices, you know, so for them, they're probably gonna be better served by more true strength.

Training progressions to keep them healthy and strong, especially through their weight cycling, throughout their sport season. Hmm. You know, so there's a lot of things to consider there, but I think it kind of depends on the demands of their sport and how they traditionally train as well. 

Matt: Yeah. 

All right.

Next section, we're going into some rapid fire, a myth busting. So myth number one, HIIT burns muscle. True or false. 

Lis: I'm gonna say neither because it completely depends on how you are fueling, I think, and how well your HIIT workout is designed, if I'm being honest. 

Matt: Right. So there's a lot of factors that go into it.

It's not just doing a HIIT workout will just deplete your muscles. Mm-hmm. There's other things involved. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: Number two, heavy lifting automatically makes women bulky. 

Lis: False, false. Absolutely false. I could go on for so long about this. You know, we hear the, the misnomer of toning and toning is literally just building muscle.

You you have to build muscle to then burn fat. And so you might feel, you might feel emphasis on the feel, which is feelings are relevant, but you might feel bulky for the short term. But for the most part, once you build a little bit of muscle, you're gonna burn more fat. You're gonna get probably closer to that aesthetic that you're looking for when you're trying to avoid being bulky.

Also, strong ladies are very, very attractive. You should, you should want to look strong. Okay? 

Matt: Yep. Yep. For example, look at my wife. 

Woo. 

Lis: Yeah, she's a smoke show, 

Matt: Myth number three, you must do HIIT to lose fat efficiently. 

Lis: I kind of addressed that in the last one too, but also not necessarily. There's a.

Tons of ways to lose fat. And they're all not, they're not all movement based, right? We have to go into nutrition, we have to go into sleep quality, we have to go into your stress levels throughout your life. There's so many things that, that go into that HIIT can help you with that. And there are all strength training also can help you with that.

As well as longer duration, lower intensity, cardio. There's any, any version of training can help you lose fat depending on the other factors. 

Matt: Myth number four. Strength training is pointless if you only have 20 minutes. 

Lis: False. I especially when you take into consideration warmup and mobility.

I would say about 80% of my one-on-one clients are actually training for 20 minutes because we have 30 minute sessions. Some of them come in early and get their up on, but like, my, my clients are definitely making progress toward their goals. Measurable con progress toward their goals in those 30 minute sessions.

Matt: Because what you have built for 'em is very intentional. Yep. It's very direct. Myth number five HIIT is dangerous for anyone over 40. 

Lis: Absolutely not. If it's poorly trained, HIIT, it could be dangerous for anybody regardless of our age and training. It, if it's properly designed and well coached, that is where the safety piece comes into, right?

Like it's all about making sure that you have. A program designed and coached to the people that are actually completing it. And so we have some different, as a member of the over 40 club, we have some different conditions or like, constraints maybe that we need to consider, you know, and so as long as we're considering those one designing and implementing them, then we should be moving safely.

Matt: Yes. There's a lot of factors That go into something like that. It's not fair to say HIIT, it's just dangerous. There's a carpet. Myth number six, cardio kills strength gains, period. 

Lis: Also a myth because again, when done well, look at the trend in hybrid athletes right now.

Like one of my, the, my favorite people that I follow online, she is yoked. She is totally jacked and she also runs ultras and like, you know, so it's, it. She's the exception. I think, like, she's a one percenter in a lot of ways, right? But it's absolutely possible to be very, very strong and also good at cardio if you're designing things and implementing those programs effectively.

Matt: Myth number seven, sweat equals intensity, which equals effectiveness. 

Lis: If that were true I'd be having a very effective training session right now because I'm sweating. We finally hit summer, it's like 80 degrees. Um, so no, you don't have to, it is just like being sore, right? You don't have to be super sweaty.

You don't have to be super sore to equal a quality training session. 

Matt: Yeah. I mean sometimes you could be, you could be sweating too much 'cause you're working. Way too hard and then it's not really effective at that point. You're more breaking down than 

Yep. Than building. 

Lis: Well, and also too, it's a factor of the environment, right?

Like, think about a couple of days ago we had like 3000% humidity. You felt so sweaty, but you also didn't necessarily need to be doing much to get there, right? 

Matt: Yeah. I 

walked up the stairs and I was like, oh God.

Alright. Unstoppable challenge this week. Audit your training split. Ask yourself, does every session match the goal? I say I want. If not, swap out one workout strength for HIIT or vice versa to better align with your target. Tiny tweak, massive momentum. Remember it's not HIIT or strength.

It's the right tool at the right time. You're unstoppable by design, ready for a training plan that uses both tools like a pro? Head to juggernaut-fitness.com to connect with our coaching team and get a program dialed for your goals. Hit follow drop. A quick review if today's face off sparked an aha and turn on notifications.

New episodes land every Tuesday. Next week's mini episode tech and tracking maximizing wearables and apps. We'll break down how to squeeze real performance data out of that watch that you might use to track your workouts. Until then, be well be unstoppable.