Scientists Find the Bare Minimum Exercise You Need to Get Fit

May 14, 2012 10:47 pm / Posted in

http://gizmodo.com/5885601/scientists-find-the-bare-minimum-exercise-you-need-to-get-fit

We all know we need to exercise to stay fit and healthy, but sometimes it’s difficult to find the time. Don’t worry: scientists have worked out the minimum amount of exercise you can get away with in order to get fit.

The New York Times reports that a group of researchers are turning health and fitness studies on their heads, by investigating just how little exercise we really need. Turns out, as long as you’re willing to work hard during your exercise, you probably don’t need as much as you think.

Most world-class athletes do intervals: short, sharp bursts of strenuous activity, interspersed with rest. Inspired by that, researchers at McMaster University developed a version of high-intensity interval training that involves one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person’s maximum heart rate, followed by one minute of easy recovery. Their version sees that process repeated ten times, meaning a total exercise times of 20 minutes, and is supposed to be carried out just twice a week.

But can two interval sessions a week really get you fit? Well, despite the infrequent nature of the exercise, the researchers have shown that, after several weeks of practicing it, both unfit volunteers and cardiac patients taking part in the study showed significant improvements in their health and fitness. In the words of the researchers:

“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that high-intensity interval training can serve as an effective alternate to traditional endurance-based training, inducing similar or even superior physiological adaptations in healthy individuals and diseased populations, at least when compared on a matched-work basis.”

We all seem to put exercise low on our priority list, but what if you could get results in less time?  This is when interval training can really come in handy. The best part about this type of training is you really don’t have to be an exercise guru to write your own program.

Ask yourself, what type of cardio exercise do you enjoy the most?

Choose a low-impact exercise, such as biking, swimming, trail walking, or rollerblading. Your goal is to work at peak intensity for each 30-second interval. The 60 seconds in between should be slow and recovery. In the beginning practice doing it as well as you can. Have fun relax, and enjoy. After a few practice sessions you’ll have them mastered and you’ll be ready for a higher intensity push. Your first week should be of training should look like this:

Warm up: 5-8 min, this should be about 50% of what you think your maximum intensity should be.
Intervals: Start with 3 then every other workout add on more interval and reduce your cool down time.
Cool down time: 10 to 5 minutes and should be about 50% of your max intensity.

After completing 4 weeks of this phase you can change the interval type. For example 60 second high intensity vs. 30 second low or 45 second high vs. 45 low. You can change your cardio type but its best to stick to a 4 week phase before changing the type.

Your total work out time should be about 20-25 minutes.

-Burke

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