No time to exercise?
You are not alone ! Many people are in your case...
But what would you say if you knew that 1 minute was all it took to keep in shape?
Sounds impossible, doesn't it?!
Well, a new study has shown that it only takes 60 seconds of intensive sport to be fit!
In other words, researchers have concluded that just 60 seconds of intensive sport brings as many benefits as 45 minutes of moderate physical activity.
Yes, you read that right!
I feel that it will interest people like me, that is to say those who are rushed and/or lazy :-)
This study was carried out by researchers at McMaster University.
To do this, the researchers recruited 25 volunteers, all of whom were in poor physical shape.
Then they measured their physical and cardiovascular condition as well as their general state of health.
Finally, the volunteers were separated into 3 study groups:
1. A control group not practicing any physical activity.
2. A group practicing a moderate endurance exercise consisting of 2 min warm-up, 45 min stationary bike and 3 min cool-down.
3. Finally, a group practicing a very short and intensive split exercise consisting of 2 min of warm-up, 20 seconds of intensive effort while pedaling as fast as possible, 2 min of slow recovery, 20 seconds of sprinting, 2 min of recovery, 20 seconds of sprint and 3 min of recovery. This session lasted only 10 min in total with only 1 min of intensive effort.
This experiment lasted 3 months, with 3 exercise sessions per week.
In total, over these 3 months, the 2nd group practicing exercise at moderate endurance performed 27 hours of sport.
The 3rd group, for its part, practicing split exercises, totaled 6 hours of physical activity, including only 36 min of intensive sport .
Once the experiment was over, the researchers measured the physical and cardiovascular condition of the participants again to see the effects of these workouts on their health.
They discovered something amazing:unlike the control group, which obviously experienced no change in general health, the 2nd and 3rd groups saw the health of its participants improve almost identically.
Either, for those who have done long training sessions as well as for those who have done short intensive sessions!
In both groups, the endurance capacity of the participants increased by 20% and participants' insulin resistance increased significantly.
The researchers also noted, for each of the methods used by these 2 groups, a significant increase in muscle power, particularly at the level of e the oxygen consumption of their muscles .
In other words, neither method is superior to the other! The only difference is that one of them requires much less time than the other.
If you are a person used to exercising at a moderate pace (or you do not exercise at all), does this mean that you should favor intensive interval training?
“It all depends on why you exercise,” says Martin Gibala, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University.
“For high performance athletes, it is obvious that combining high intensity interval training with moderate endurance exercises in your overall program will increase your physical performance.
“On the other hand, for people like me who just want to get in better shape, but don't have 45-60 min to exercise, our results clearly indicate that just 1 minute of intensive exercise> regularly can bring you a lot of benefits.”
As you will have understood, these intensive weekly training sessions are particularly suitable for people who do not have enough time to play sports.
Are you convinced by the benefits of interval training? Check out our interval training exercises here.
