I've talked recently in this post that the problem withe the classic interval training of going "all out" for short periods of time can be rather difficult when dealing with people that are quite overweight due to the amount of compression that would result on various joints, particularly the knees.
That's why I was advocating in that post the concept of what I like to call "Metavals" where instead you use a number of exercises in a circuit fashion for a period of time and you'd be getting just as much fat loss benefit as you would with all out sprints.
But this new interval training study that said it's not completely necessary to go "all out" in order to be effective.
As Gibala explained to the press:
"We have shown that interval training does not have to be 'all out' in order to be effective."
"Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously," he added.
So the part about the sprints being just as effective in a short workout compared to a long distance session is something we've known. But the part about not having to go all out and still being effective is something new.
In this new study they used a standard stationary bike and a workout that was still beyond the comfort zone of most people (about 95 per cent of maximal heart rate), but was only half of what might be regarded as an "all out" sprint.
This less extreme form of HIT should work well for people whose doctors might be a little worried about them taking up the "all out" form: that is people who are older, less fit and likely to be overweight.
The subjects in this study had six training sessions over a two week period where they completed 8 to 12 one-minute high intensity bursts (although it still wasn't "all out") followed by 75 seconds of active rest period between the bursts. I'm assuming they had some kind of warm up and cooldown so each workout probably came out to 30 minutes at most.
The results:
The results showed that the training significantly increased exercise capacity in two cycling time trials (one for 50kJ and the other for 750kJ).
The researchers also compared biopsy samples of vastus lateralis muscle (the largest part of the quadriceps) taken before the 2 weeks of training with samples taken after, and found that the later samples showed increased maximal activity of mitochondrial capacity and other relevant chemical processes.
The conclusions:
"This study demonstrates that a practical model of low volume HIT is a potent stimulus for increasing skeletal muscle mitochondrial capacity and improving exercise performance."
The researcher also concluded that to get the same results within the same time period (2 weeks) of slow steady state endurance, a person would have had to go for 10 hours, rather than the 3 hours of total work that it took to get these results in this study (at the same time, it would have been interesting if they would have had a separate group of subjects actually doing that in the study so that they could make a better comparison of that).
I like the fact that they used the bike on this and I think if interval programs were to be used for those that are fairly overweight, it's probably the modality to use since there's less jolting of the knees. NOTE: If you're going to use a stationary bike, use the upright one, not a recumbent.
But if that's not available, I still wouldn't recommend running sprints for this particular population since it's a knee injury just waiting to happen. The metavals that I talk about in this post are still your other best option.
It's great to see though that Interval Training studies are still coming out and showing that it's a more efficient and effective workout compared to slow steady state cardio.
www.leanbodytraining.com
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