If you had to pick the better runner — a sprinter or a marathoner — the answer would depend on the type of race. In a 200-meter race, the sprinter will have an edge over the marathoner, but if it calls for, say, 18 miles, the marathoner will outrun the sprinter.
That’s how you should think about high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and low-intensity steady-state (LISS) cardio. One type of workout isn’t necessarily better than the other, but one might be better suited for you, depending on your fitness goals.
What exactly is the difference between HIIT and LISS cardio? HIIT involves alternating between short bursts of intense effort with periods of rest or active recovery. There are many ways to do HIIT, but some of the most popular work-to-rest ratios are 30 seconds of work and 30 seconds of rest, 45 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest, or four minutes of alternating between 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest (also known as a Tabata).
LISS cardio is low-intensity exercise, such as walking, jogging and cycling, at a relatively easy pace.
“If you’re looking to do a marathon, mud run or endurance-based activity, put some energy into LISS. But if you’re looking to be more explosive, athletic or build muscle, HIIT workouts are best suited to help you do that,” said Rafique “Flex” Cabral, a NASM-certified personal trainer and Isopure athlete.
To help you decide which type of exercise is best for you, here are different scenarios where HIIT or LISS could be more beneficial.
Aug. 4, 202110:18
If you’re new to exercise and just want to get moving
Whether you’re a gym newbie or are getting back into working out after a hiatus, LISS is a good way to ease into exercise. Because you’re working at a low intensity, you may be able to work out for a longer period of time and exercise more consistently. HIIT workouts — although shorter — require more effort from your muscles and can be stressful on the joints.
“Older adults experience great results with LISS cardio as it improves their bone density and musculoskeletal health, in turn promoting healthier aging. These benefits also allow for a cost-effective means in promoting positive improvements in the ability to carry out activities of daily living,” said Lisa Reed, MS, CSCS, a performance coach and owner of Lisa Reed Fitness, LLC.
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If you want to lose weight and rev up your metabolism
Doing any type of LISS cardio will burn calories, helping you achieve the calorie deficit you need to lose weight. But turning up the intensity of your workout is ultimately going to help you burn more calories, giving HIIT an edge.
“LISS is great for improving endurance activities and cardiovascular work capacity, and aids in recovery and weight loss. But if you’re trying to gain muscle, which helps burn fat, LISS may not be the best thing to add into your routine frequently,” explained Cabral.
HIIT helps you build and maintain moderate amounts of lean muscle mass. It also produces an afterburn effect called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC), said Cabral. EPOC is the amount of calories you burn long after your workout is over, and HIIT is the most effective workout for stimulating EPOC, according to the American Council on Exercise.
The after-burn effect of EPOC can last anywhere from 12 to 48 hours, according to the ACE. “[With HIIT] you will produce an after-burn effect with 25 percent more calories burned post-workout compared to going for a run or walk,” said Reed, and your metabolism can be boosted by up to 10 percent for three days after a HIIT workout. “Maintaining a routine that involves HIIT training three to four times a week will help compound that post-workout effect on your metabolism,” Cabral explained.
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If you want to boost your athletic performance
“Incorporating resistance training into your HIIT workouts can help build and maintain muscle, particularly your type II fast-twitch muscle fibers, which are necessary for athletic movement,” Cabral said.
You have two different muscle fibers: type I (slow-twitch muscle fibers) and type II (fast-twitch muscle fibers). Your type I muscle fibers are built for endurance activities, such as running a marathon and biking long distances, while type II muscle fibers are made for quick, explosive movements. Think: sprints, jumps and heavy lifts.
So if you have your sights set on improving the height of your jumps or increasing the load of your deadlifts, then HIIT is the way to go.
That said, HIIT is extremely taxing on the body, so you shouldn’t do it every day. Doing HIIT two to three times a week is more than enough, and you should aim to recover at least 48 hours between your workouts, per the ACE.
LISS cardio is a great way to add variety to your workouts and prevent over training. Mixing in some low-intensity work, like walking or doing a leisurely bike ride or swim, allows you to get some movement as your muscles repair.
If you don’t have a lot of time to exercise
What’s great about HIIT is that you don’t have to work nearly as long as LISS cardio to get an effective workout, and you can customize your workout with different exercises and pieces of equipment.
“HIIT workouts are an excellent way to increase your workout intensity in a short amount of time — 20 minutes or less. You can also keep things interesting by switching up the sequence or swapping out different exercises from strength to high-intensity movement,” Reed said.
For example, doing a HIIT workout that involves doing squats followed by jumping rope will blast fat, burn calories, and activate muscle strength, Reed said.
In fact, a small study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research compared the calorie expenditure of nine healthy men doing 30 minutes of strength training, endurance cycling, endurance running on a treadmill, and HIIT training. The results showed that HIIT burned more calories than the other three workouts, suggesting that you can burn more calories with a 30-minute HIIT workout than doing steady-state cardio in the same amount of time.
That’s not to say that you can’t get a great workout with LISS cardio, too. LISS cardio can help you get more movement into your day while reaping the benefits of exercise. But HIIT can be helpful if you want to get more out of your workout in less time.
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How can you make your HIIT and LISS workouts more challenging?
To level up your LISS cardio workouts, Cabral recommended adding different types of activities into your routine, like running, biking, swimming and rowing.
When it comes to HIIT, Cabral said experimenting with different variables can spice things up. Some ideas: “Decreasing the rest time while increasing the work time or increasing both the work and rest periods, adding more rounds, and increasing the weights for strength-based movements,” Cabral said. “HIIT workouts
How many times a week should you do HIIT and LISS training?
Reed recommended incorporating both LISS cardio and HIIT into your workout routine to reap their health benefits. “My philosophy has always been that every little bit counts. Walk for at least 30 minutes, five times a week and perform a HIIT workout two to three times per week [for] 10 to 20 minutes per workout,” Reed suggested.
Another great way to add both LISS cardio and HIIT into your routine: Perform a 15-minute HIIT workout followed by 30 minutes of LISS cardio. “You will be burning more calories from fat when you follow HIIT with any LISS activity,” Reed said.
Cabral recommended following a 2:1 HIIT to LISS ratio for building muscle, and if your goal is more endurance-based, reverse that ratio.
For beginners, Cabral suggested working out two to three times a week, working your way up to three to five times per week.
“Your fitness goals will determine the balance of what you need to be able to look and perform the way you want. Everyone is different, so finding that balance might take a little trial and error, which is ultimately worth it when you find what works best for you,” Cabral said.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
