:
have you got a Heart Rate monitor? If you do a hard 30 min HITT session, continuing on with a brisk / gentle walk won't lessen your efforts. Though you will move down from 'fitness' training (generally anything above 80% of your HR maximum) into the 'fat burning' range (anywhere around the 60% - 79% of your HR maximum) you'll still be burning calories at a higher rate than if you didn't do the HITT session in the first place. Does that make sense?
And then she followed up with a bit more info:
:
220 minus your age = X (we'll use me as an example as I can't see your age on your sig lol). So 220 - 31 = 189.
189 is my heart rate maximum (if it beats faster than that I'm in trouble lol!).
Then you just work out what each % is eg if I wanted to stick to a 'fat burning' range I'd aim for 70% (70 divided by 100 multiply by 189 = 132 beats per min).
How do you work out if your heart is beating that fast during a workout? Well you do have to slow down a bit (but don't stop entirely, just walking around is fine - this prevents blood pooling around the heart). Find your pulse and count the beats for 15 seconds. Multiply that number by 4 and it'll give you the number of beats per minute. So I'd want to reach the number 33 in that 15 second count to hit 132 beats per min to KNOW I'm working out at 70% of my maximum heart rate. If I only reach 30 beats per min I know I'd be just under that 70% - but still in the fat burning range etc....
I hope it's not all gobbledegook to you - I've tried explaining it as clear as I can.
My tip is to work out what 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% of your heart rate maximum is - write it down and before long you'll have a really good idea on where abouts what level you are working at...I hope this helps hun!
I thought this was great info, so wanted to re-include it here :) According to that, my fat burning range is between 109 and 144 (I think! I'm a bit tired, so hope I got it right! I'm 37). I reckon most of the time now on the bike I'm working at about 120. I can't remember who else was worried they weren't working hard enough, but if you see from my example, 109 is not that high and is still fat burning.