I am prone to all sorts of nausea. Poor camera work, first person shooter games, car sickness and a particularly horrible susceptibility to sea sickness often result in an art form I like to call reverse eating. For the sake of my typing lets just call it what it is, vomit. It should come as no surprise then that my first ever HIIT session ended abruptly, face down in the toilet.

I get many emails a week asking about HIIT (I can’t reply to them all, but please use the forums, we have some extremely helpful members), and often people will tell me of their first HIIT experience that resulted in nausea and vomiting.

First of all we must establish that exercise induced nausea does not affect everyone, but it is a perfectly normal and common response to exercise. Although you may feel like it, vomiting after HIIT will not kill you and it will be over usually quite quickly after vomiting and some rest.

There is anecdotal evidence that suggests higher intensity exercise is more likely to result in exercise induce nausea. This is bad news for HIITers, for by definition we push the limits every workout.

So can we avoid it?

A study at Nagoya University in Japan examined 12 volunteers and their response to exercise, half of the volunteers were considered athletes. The study uncovered a few key points:

• Exercise intensity DOES impact on severity of exercise induced nause
• Food intake DOES impact on severity of exercise induced nausea
• Gender DOES NOT impact on severity of exercise induced nausea
• Level of fitness DOES NOT impact on severity of exercise induced nausea

For high intensity interval trainers, altering the intensity of our workout is not going to do us any favors, and i’d personally rather be sick than go back to boring 60 minute LISS. This leaves food intake as our only controllable variable.

In order to minimize your chances of keeping your food down after HIIT, make sure to keep your HIIT sessions well away from large meals, and if you absolutely must eat, stick with light foods and small portions. Do not deprive yourself of hydration in an effort to reduce exercise induced nausea, as it will actually make it worse.

If you have something else to add or you have come across any remedies, drop by the HIIT forums and let us know! I for one would appreciate a miracle cure.