Cardio is a major topic of controversy in the fitness industry. While one camp says cardio is completely stupid, the other says it's how you do it that determines its benefits. Now coming to the folks who support having some cardio activity in their routine, there is a seemingly unending debate between which form of cardio is better, LISS or HIIT. 

Those unaware of these terms altogether, they mean the following:

HIIT - High-Intensity Interval Training

In this style of cardio, you do high-intensity activity like sprinting or going all-out on a spin bike for 30 seconds followed by 2 to 3 minutes of low-intensity activity recovering from the high-intensity phase. This circuit of high-intensity bouts followed by low-intensity recovery is done anywhere for 4 to 8 rounds. 

LISS - Low-Intensity Steady State

In this style of cardio, you perform the activity at a low intensity but for longer durations like 30 or 60 minutes where you are being able to breathe easily (you still find difficulty talking continuously). 

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The major debate is that HIIT makes you work in the 'fat burning zone' which is at a certain heart rate but the truth is that the fat burning zone does not exist. Though you may burn more calories per unit time doing HIIT if you are looking at the total fat burn, studies state quite the opposite and favor LISS for burning 'more fat' while exercising.  Another debate that people pull out is the 'EPOC effect' which leads to an 'after burn' effect. But these studies on EPOC were done in a lab setting and if you compare it to the real world, it hardly makes any significant difference in your overall caloric expenditure or calorie burn per day. 

And the thing that people who get too tied up with these debates often forget that for fat loss, you have to be in a net caloric deficit over time. Cardio will only facilitate the process slightly. 

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First, you should narrow down the purpose of your cardio. If you participate in sports that need short bursts of energy, like football, boxing, basketball or MMA, then HIIT is likely to benefit you more. That is because these sports need you to do hard activity for short time bursts. If your goal is fat loss and you are doing cardio to facilitate it, here are the pros and cons of each that will let you decide for yourself:

Now that you have this, it is up to you to decide which form of cardio would you like to do and would see yourself doing more consistently in the long-term.  As for anything related to a positive change in your body composition, it needs to be done consistently in the longer term. 

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company. He is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness.