How could less aerobic exercise reap greater gains in cardiovascular fitness? Not so fast! It’s all about intensity. Turns out that people who do hours of cardiovascular exercise every week at a low intensity may make fitness gains by stepping up their efforts in half the time.
A new study published in the Journal of Physiology found that working out aerobically for 20 minutes a day using high-intensity interval exercise may provide many of the same benefits of much longer workouts done in more of a steady-state, endurance mode. The benefits include both a boost to the metabolism and reduction in the risk for chronic disease. Other research also suggests that interval training increases fat burning. Although the percentage of fat calories burned during interval training is proportionally lower than moderate, sustained aerobic training, you still burn more fat calories overall during the high intensity workout since the total calories burned is typically greater. The “more bang for your buck” benefit of interval training also makes sense in today’s world where most people are pressed for time to exercise.
Originally evolving from sports conditioning, interval training is defined as performing repeated periods of high intensity exercise interspersed with intervals of relatively light exercise. Contrary to popular belief, the “interval” is actually the intervening active rest period in between the bursts of speed. The faster, more intense segments are called repetitions or “reps”. The intervals and the reps should be approximately the same duration. Principles of interval training can be applied to any form of cardiovascular exercise.
Benefits of interval training include:
• increases aerobic power or cardiovascular fitness
• burns more calories per minute compared with moderate-intensity, steady-state aerobic exercise
• prevents a plateau in your fitness program
Athletes have long-used aerobic and anaerobic interval training to increase their fitness. Even endurance athletes incorporate speedwork in their training to increase not only their speed but also their endurance. During a 10K race, for example, runners must call upon both slow twitch (ST) and fast twitch (FT) muscle fibers; ST fibers for the bulk of the race, but FT fibers during any surges and during the final kick to the finish line.
In my next post I’ll offer some ideas for incorporating interval training into your workout program. Until then…..
Be Well,
Carolyn
May 24, 2010 at 11:55 pm |
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