Cardio day routine help

[Black Ball]

Even without taking your speed into consideration, I can already tell you aren't doing HIIT just based on the fact that you are doing it for an hour. If you were truly getting your heart rate up into the proper zones, your would be very exhausted after only 5 or so minute-long sprints or 7-10 30 second sprints. 20 minutes of true HIIT will wear out even a highly conditioned athlete.

Thats not to say that what you are doing is wrong, it just is not HIIT. You are likely keeping in a 150-170 BPM heart rate zone which is the aerobic zone. Not ideal for people desiring to gain muscle mass, but great for people who desire cardiovascular endurance.

Your "in-exercise" calorie burn is probably very high, but your "post-exercise" calorie burn is probably low. The benefits of HIIT for fat loss are in the post-exercise oxygen consumption to repair damaged muscles (look up EPOC) which burns more calories during sedentary periods even though you burn less calories during your shorter workout.

True HIIT on the treadmill is not impossible, it is just much harder to do compared to open-ground sprinting

Yeah I'd have to go to a track for a true sprint, I'm not trying to break my neck on a treadmill. But I'm completely drenched in sweat when I'm done with my workout and I've lost over 120lbs over time doing this workout

 

[Beerus]

I do 12.5 now

god damn im dead by the time i get to the 10th one which I do at 13 but I do take like more rest time and I try to run for like 40 seconds on that one just to make up for the extra time of rest I'm taking
Probably should be 13 normally and 13.5 on the last one, but I skipped it on some weeks cuz i was out of town.