Scientists have discovered that short bursts of exercise are better for our health and weight that long periods of intensive training.
Researchers say that they hope their study will ‘blow away’ the belief that people need to spend long periods of time exercising to stay in shape and shed the pounds.
The results come from a study into ‘high intensity interval training’, done at the McMaster University in Ontario, Canda. Participants were asked to run or cycle at maximum effort for a minute and then rest for a minute, repeating the routine about 10 times.
Volunteers cycled for 60 seconds as fast as possible to reach maximum heart rate. After the exercise, tests showed that their muscles had improved as much as if they had been performing endurance training. To achieve the same results through endurance training participants would have needed to do 10 hours of moderate-intensity cycling over two weeks.
Professor Martin Gibala, whose findings have been published in the Journal of Physiology, said that it was possible for those trying to stay healthy to achieve more by doing less.
He said it was not clear why high intensity interval training was so productive but said that it seemed to stimuli many of the ‘same cellular pathways’ as other more traditional exercise regimes.