No time for exercise? Now you don’t have an excuse to skip it. A recap of several recent studies published in the New York Times indicates that you can have all the benefits of regular exercise in just minutes of intense effort. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is exercise for the super-efficient.
Interval training is not new.
Competitive athletes routinely use interval training to improve their performance. Runners, cyclists, swimmers, and other serious athletes periodically include intervals of intense effort to build speed and endurance. High Intensity Interval training (HIIT) workouts are added to a basic program. The researchers decided to ask the question: how little exercise do we really need? The answer was surprising.
Study participants showed significant improvement in measures of health and fitness.
There were two groups in the most recent study. One group consisted of generally healthy middle-aged individuals who were sedentary. The participants in the other group were actually unwell, suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. A control group participated in a more standard exercise program, 30 minutes of continuous exercise. All the exercise groups were thoroughly evaluated before beginning the HIIT training, and were found to be generally unfit. After six weeks on the program, all of the participants showed significant improvement in heart health and insulin sensitivity.
Participants experienced unexpected benefits from the shorter, more intense HIIT workouts.
The most striking result was in the heart patients. Additionally, the shorter, tougher HIIT workouts prompted increased efficiency in the body’s energy metabolism, enabling the creation of more cellular proteins that provide immediate energy to the body. The improvements in sugar metabolism lasted for a full day after the workout. This has exciting implications for preventing diabetes.
The total workout time is twenty minutes, half of it at rest.
Instead of the long, slow burn we’ve come to expect from aerobic exercise, HIIT involves achieving 90 percent of your maximum heart rate for one minute, followed by one minute of rest. 90 percent of your maximum heart rate is approximately 220 minus your age. Do this 9 more times and you’re done. Do it again another day and you’re done for the week.
Talk to your doctor before you try High Intensity Interval Training for general health.
The main appeal of this approach is efficiency. If you don’t have time for the 30 minutes of sweating 3-5 times a week that doctors recommend, 20 minutes of HIIT twice a week is probably sounding pretty good. If this is you, you are also likely out of shape. Check with your doctor before you try this. It’s always a good idea to involve an expert when you try a new fitness program, especially if you are middle aged like the study participants. Before and after measures could be fun too.
High Intensity Interval Training is not just for professional athletes any more.
Source:
The New York Times
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