“Joint pain is never a good pain with exercise,” he says.
Studies show HIIT can help improve aerobic endurance and metabolic health in people at all fitness levels, but Petreycik warns HIIT workouts can also be more stressful on the joints. “Joint pain is never a good pain with exercise,” he says. To prevent unnecessary stress to your joints, Petreyick recommends slowly increasing the frequency or duration of HIIT workouts over the course of several weeks, alternating regularly with a steady state exercise performed at a sustained, moderate effort for a continuous period of time, such as walking, running, cycling and hiking.