...or anyone else who knows more than I do... i'm currenty implementing johns fat loss phase cardio into my workouts (it's on the "training info" page.) I do 23 minutes of the gradual effort increase/decrease HIIT routine 2 days out of 5 and i do 12 minutes of 60/90% effort HIIT on my strength days (the other 3 days) so my question is.... I have no way of checking my "effort" level so could I just go with my instinct on what I think is 60%...70%...80% effort and so forth? Another question, can i substitute "effort" for heart rate? I.E. 60% of max heart rate for 1 minute, 70% of max heart rate for 1 minute, etc. and last..does it really matter? I did 23 minutes today based on my instict and i felt it pretty good (sweat up a storm). Sorry for the long post guys...if John or anyone else can give me some suggestions, i'd gladly appreciate it.


p.s. i'm not looking for anyone to critique my workout... i just want a simple answer. Reason I bring this up is b/c if I posted this on 1fast400.com or nutritionalsupplements.com everyone and their mom will bludgeon me with "WHAT ARE YOUR STATS? WE CAN'T HELP YOU IF WE DON'T KNOW YOUR STATS" and dude...in this case it doesn't matter, so i'm pretty positive you guys aren't like that (in this situation) :tucool:

Here's my take on your question, direct from my Training Page (http://www.johnstonefitness.com/php/training.php):


"The HIIT workouts I do are based on perceived effort, not heart rate. I do use my heart rate to help "keep me honest". For example, if I'm on my 90% or 100% intervals, but my heart rate is not pretty close to its maximum, I try to push even harder.

...

Heart rate and perceived effort are, of course, related; however, the relationship changes depending on what equipment you are using. As mentioned above, I rely more on perceived effort than heart rate. The heart rate monitor comes in handy mostly when I do the occasional aerobic-level cardio workout and I'm trying to stay at 80% of my maximum heart rate for the entire 50 minutes. Honestly, when I do HIIT cardio I could leave the monitor off and still get just as effective a workout."

For my cardio, I go in the afternoons, because I do weights in the mornings and never like to do weights in the afternoon. What I do is, jump on the treadmill and run for 15 minutes at a heart rate of about 160 (my max is 200), now usually after this i have burnt around 250 cals and I'm sweating like a mofo. Then I jump on the stair master and do another 15 at the same heart rate, afterwards I'm pretty buggered.

I dont really like the HIT 16 minute workouts, I tried doing it once and didnt do much for me, I went to AST and they said to do it on a stationary bike, well I went all out for 16 mins and hardly broke a sweat, its weird how some things give you a better workout than others.