Go with the slow

BURNED-OUT DEVOTEES OF HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING ARE SWITCHING TO LISS – LOW-INTENSITY STEADY STATE. AND, AS NEW YORK WRITER MARISA MELTZER DISCOVERED, THAT DOESN’T MEAN READING A BOOK ON THE STATIONARY BIKE

High-Intensity Interval Training is over. It’s time to dial down your workout

YOU KNOW THE SAYING, ‘NO PAIN, NO GAIN’? I’ve always considered that my exercise rule of thumb. My normal workouts involve being shouted at by a trainer while doing burpees, my heart rate outpacing the BPM of most dance music, and copious amounts of sweat dripping off my body. I was a card-carrying member of the HighIntensity Interval Training (HIIT) movement, going to spin-class boot camp twice a week for cardio, then strength training with a personal trainer. This regime, which meant I slept better at night and could fit into my skinniest jeans, had plenty of intensity. But instead of it feeling cathartic, I would leave the classes feeling depleted.

Recently, my HIIT training came to an end after I pulled a thigh muscle during a pilates-hybrid class that involved a foreboding machine called the Megaformer (a carriage-and-springs-like pilates reformer on which you’re expected to crawl, plank, and do push-ups). I was advised by my physical therapist to dial back the intensity of my workouts while my body healed. A wave of anxiety crashed over me. Punishing workouts were how I dealt with stress, and I was worried I would gain weight or at least lose the muscle definition I’d worked so hard to attain.

This is the kind of city where ‘no phones’ signs are visible at the cult spin class SoulCycle. To go 45 minutes without being connected to our jobs, our lives and the world at large is difficult for many – including me. I’ve been known to check my email

between reps with my trainer. Enter the Slow Exercise movement.

I’d read an article about Low-Intensity Steady State workouts (LISS), which are defined as any type of cardio-based exercises that can be done at a sustained pace; walking, swimming, cycling, hiking, stair-climbing, even skipping. You do 45-60 minutes at 60% of your maximum heart rate, a few days a week. You can wear a heart monitor to gauge it, but you don’t have to – I certainly didn’t.

‘LISS should be done at a pace at which you could hold a conversation without getting too breathless,’ says Debora Warner, the triathlete founder of the popular New York City treadmill studio Mile High Run Club. ‘Your breath should be in control and you should have a perceived effort of six or seven out of 10.’ Warner is an advocate of LISS; it’s part of her own training regime. New Yorkers are finally slowing down, and I was ready to join them.

We have slow food (promoting local and regional ingredients), slow fashion (eco-clothing), and even slow television (Norwegian TV shows where ordinary activities, such as knitting, are aired at full length), so it makes sense that people are embracing exercise at a reduced pace. Plus, we live in hectic and uncertain times. I can’t control the news cycle, but taking a more methodical, pleasurable approach to fitness felt like a step in a positive direction for my own sanity.

As it turns out, slowing down has its own challenges. I vetoed walking, because I already walk everywhere and don’t feel quite old enough to count that as a workout. So I decided to jog, which I usually do in sprints on treadmills as part of a gruelling circuit training session until I feel that I might fall over.

Instead, on one sunny Saturday morning, I jogged solo along Brooklyn’s waterfront, stopping to pet dogs and admire the view. I didn’t even listen to music, I just focused on my movement, breathing, and my surroundings. I came home 45 minutes later, flushed and energised, without the postHIIT feeling of having had my soul completely destroyed.

It’s the perfect social workout, given that the whole idea of a ‘conversational pace’ is best put to the test with a partner. While visiting my mother in north California, we went on a three-mile hike together, chatting while we powered our way up hills lined with redwood trees. One afternoon, a friend and I went to a community pool, where I swam in the slow lane for 40 laps (a little more than a mile). And while we couldn’t talk during our laps, we’d wave.

My new workout plan felt rather pleasant. It was easy to figure out, varied, and I was saving money because I didn’t need to pay for a personal trainer or expensive boutique fitness classes. I was getting the recommended full 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week* – but I wasn’t yet a full convert. While I didn’t feel lazy, I also didn’t feel pushed to my limit, exhausted or sore, so I wondered if it was working. Was I really going to be able to run faster if I wasn’t testing my limits? I took solace in the fact that my skinny jeans continued to fit just fine.

‘Low intensity is good for weight loss,’ says Dr Michael Fredericson, a professor at

Stanford University’s School of Medicine in California. ‘When you exercise for upwards of an hour at about 60% of your maximal effort, you can start to burn fat.’ The key is that LISS isn’t just plodding along – you’re not doing five laps, then heading to the steam room. A true LISS workout requires the stamina to stay in that fat-burning zone for a sustained amount of time.

In 2014, a study by scientists at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, found that people who performed short-duration high-intensity exercise burned the same amount of calories and fat when compared to those who did longer, low-intensity workouts**. LISS can also increase the flow of blood and oxygen, and it lessens the strain on joints (which is what got me into it in the first place). By giving my torn muscle a break from all the physical stress of HIIT, my injury was able to slowly heal itself.

HIIT sessions, with all their low lighting, loud music and instructors screaming ‘dig deep’ into their headsets, suits our fast-paced lifestyles. But they’re also adding to our stress, both physical and mental. ‘We’re living in an overstimulated society,’ says Dr Joseph Herrera from the Department of Rehabilitation, Mount Sinai Health System in New York. ‘Flashing lights [like those at HIIT] are known stressors.’ All of it is giving our fight-or-flight nervous system a hard time. In turn, LISS is active rest for our bodies and minds, and even better if it’s undertaken outdoors. And the greatest proof of LISS working isn’t that I lost weight or saved money, but that I stuck to it. Instead of dreading my workouts because they were the hardest part of my day, I now work off stress, and my solo jogs function as a respite as well. A few days ago, I craved a good sweat session, so I went to one of my old hardcore classes. I grunted my way through it, and went home exhausted. It turns out that a combination of HIIT and LISS might be the perfectly balanced workout regime for me. But whatever speed I go, one thing remains the same: my phone is at home on charge.