Should Your Workout Crush You? PIN ITSHARE

From HIIT, Tabata training, and CrossFit to fast-paced group fitness classes and even, uh, high-intensity yoga, incredibly demanding workouts that leave participants in a sweaty heap are popular and don't seem to be going away anytime soon. But should every workout leave you gasping for breath and jonesing for naptime? The answer depends on what your body can handle and your personal fitness goals.

Intermittent bursts of maximal effort during any exercise—say, three to five 30-second sprints peppered throughout a leisurely, half-hour elliptical, StairMaster, or treadmill session—can boost strength, endurance, and fat loss compared to slower paced workouts . Such explosions of power (see also: jump squats or burpees) also greatly improve insulin sensitivity, which means better digestion, improved absorption of nutrients, and the ability to maintain stable blood sugar levels (which prevents weight gain) . Best of all, high-intensity training fits nicely into most busy schedules, as workouts can often be accomplished in 30 minutes or (way) less! There’s a huge difference, however, between adding a few minutes of all-out exertion to your weekly regimen and feeling destroyed after every gym session.

“Many gym-goers falsely equate getting crushed by a workout with getting more benefit,” says physical therapist and Greatist Expert Eugene “Bo” Babenko, DPT. “But there’s far more to fitness than feeling the burn.”

This Is Your Body on Beast Mode
Every time we work out, we break down our muscles and challenge our heart and lungs. With adequate rest and refueling, our heart, lungs, and muscles repair themselves and grow stronger. This is, in a nutshell, what “getting fit” means: What initially wiped us out becomes increasingly easier to bounce back from as our bodies adapt.

“Walking away from a training session without feeling sore doesn’t mean you didn’t get anything done,” Babenko says. “A lot of progress is being made neurologically—the brain is also adapting to your routine.” And even if that routine no longer feels challenging, “your body’s still benefitting from moving through a full range of motion.”

While periodically dialing up the intensity of our workouts ensures we make ongoing progress, days of less strenuous exercise (where our exertion levels remain below 50 percent of our maximum heart rate) are equally crucial to our health—and to our happiness. Lower-intensity workouts still burn calories, get our blood flowing, bolster our endurance, and produce enough endorphins to leave us with a comfortable exercise high. Being active for longer periods of time at lower intensities throughout the day may in fact be better for our heart health, longevity, and metabolism than isolated bouts of 30 to 60 minutes of maximal effort exercise—especially if, outside the gym, our lives are predominately sedentary .

READ MORE on https://greatist.com/move/benefits-of-low-intensity-workouts