One Minute of All-Out Exercise May Have Benefits of 45 Minutes of Moderate
well.blogs.nytimes.com
well.blogs.nytimes.com
Its not exercise for 1 minute. Its exercise for 10 minutes, with 1 minute of that being all out. The actual comparison is 10 minutes vs 45, not 1 minute vs 45 as headline says.
I think author could have said as effectively 10 minutes of interval exercise may have benefits of 45 minutes of moderate exercise
What the 10 minutes (with 1 minute all out) gets closer to HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), something which I highly recommend.
Here is a great study which describes some of the benefits - you'll notice that the researchers ran into some trouble with the duration "rest period" versus "sprint period", but otherwise, there are some great results. [0]
Another consideration is that when we assume that natural processes respond linearly, we seem to have a tremendous track record of being wrong. Even with that being the case, essentially every model that covers any aspect of fitness seems to assume linear response. So it's not surprising to see demonstrations that these models don't hold to reality at the extremes.
Since the Fitbit was released, I've maintained that counting steps is a useless activity unless you are very old or infirm. I think that practitioners (i.e. athletes) have long known that intensity is the primary determinant of changes in body composition and athletic performance. It's seemed to me for a while that one of many causes of the difficulty people have improving their bodies is that they 'exercise' rather than 'train'. That is, they think of their workout as putting in time or quantity of work, rather than just trying to improve their performance across various physical tests.
The first three I went as hard and fast as I could. Best shape I've ever been in.
Nice work. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it should be noted for anyone struggling to lose weight: Weight loss is 99% diet (calories in, calories out).
Work out all day long, but if you're at a caloric surplus, you're going to gain weight. Never work out, but eat less than you burn, and you'll lose weight.
That said, there are countless benefits to regular exercise, so don't overlook it.
So I wish some study did what you did, but had groups doing what you did (all-out for ten minutes every day), a group going all out for ten minutes but every 2 days, a group each doing the same but every 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 80 days respectively.
Obviously (or not so obviously!!) you'll get only a small percentage of the benefits as you go up in number of recovery days. But 10 minutes every 15 days for example is 4 hours a year. Is it possible that 4 hours a year of all-out exercise is the difference between fit and +30 lbs?
Attached is my prediction of the results, based on the reasoning in my first paragraph. Doing it every day has been a baseline of "100%" based on what you said "Best shape I've ever been in." The only thing I'm sure about is that it must go up with a couple of days of rest. My attached chart: http://imgur.com/WwbpDhq
It's a genuine experiment and I'd like to see someone do it. Also key is the "all-out" part.
By the way, having noticed that certain physical professions, where everyone eats similarly, and does similar labor, are associated with certain builds, I thought I might be able to answer the question for myself, if I found a profession like moving man but where people only are called to, say, load and unload something manually, twice a month or once a month. However, I couldn't think of any such professions. Hence the idea of a controlled experiment! (Control = daily exercise.)
[1]
Historical coal shoveler: https://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln0k8ensdg1qd7ygho1_500.j...
Marines: http://storyfeeds.com/wp-content/uploads/Shirtless-Marines-t...
Rail track layer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_labour#/media/File:RAIL...
Moving men: http://www.movers.com/images/companies/gallery/937.jpg
since that picture has the company called "muscular moving men" you might think it's not a result of their job, so compare:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/emb/7237524340
compare arms (similar) and chest with lower abs and think of the tasks of moving men.
The volunteers warmed up for two minutes on stationary bicycles,
then pedaled as hard as possible for 20 seconds; rode at a very slow
pace for two minutes, sprinted all-out again for 20 seconds;
recovered with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaled all-out
for a final 20 seconds; then cooled down for three minutes. The
entire workout lasted 10 minutes, with only one minute of that time
being strenuous.
120 seconds slow
20 seconds fast
120 seconds slow
20 seconds fast
120 seconds slow
20 seconds fast
180 seconds slow
================
600 seconds (10 minutes)
Are your downstairs' neighbors having as much fun? :-)
Reading what they did, The warmup seems too short and no real warm down to relax the muscles as needed.
"...volunteers warmed up for two minutes on stationary bicycles, then pedaled as hard as possible for 20 seconds; rode at a very slow pace for two minutes, sprinted all-out again for 20 seconds; recovered with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaled all-out for a final 20 seconds; then cooled down for three minutes. The entire workout lasted 10 minutes, with only one minute of that time being strenuous. ..."
If that 1 minute of 180bpm causes an upregulation of +1bpm (or an increase of base metabolism for calorie burn) for the whole next week in a way that moderate exercise doesn't, then it can quite plausibly have significant effects..
Especially if you're not eighteen any more like me.
These studies have been published before and they don't tell us anything about what people will actually do with the information.
One minute all out may help athletes already in shape push to the next level. Like at the end of my long distance runs, I do a wind-sprint all out.
But regular people doing regular exercise benefit much more mentally from learning HOW to exercise for 45 minutes every day and increasing their metabolism.
If intensity training for a minute was all you needed, you could do sprints in the parking lot to train for a 45 minute 10K. Good luck with that.
Intensity training is good for fast-twitch muscle. Endurance training is good for slow-twitch. The two are not interchangeable.
[Citation needed]
You think a body builder could ever run a 10K at sub-6 mile pace or a sub-6 runner benchpress what a body builder could?
A major part of long distance running (10k+) is the mental aspect.
You are never, ever, going to get the mental endurance and discipline to run fast for distance by running for a short period of time, no matter how hard.
I think many people could easily train to do 5k and then 10k and get many benefits. Our very evolution came about from persistence hunting which means many people should have the genetics for endurance and far fewer for intensity (speed).
I took up BJJ (individual rather than team sport) as a way to fill my evenings, and to try to get back into martial arts. I've taken up a strength training (bodyweight) as a way to improve myself there.
The exercise isn't always fun, but it has a purpose beyond "run faster" or "lift more" (though those are fine goals as well, just insufficient motivators for me).
Congrats. I'm still a white belt and will probably remain one. They go to a gym up in Atlanta when they want to test and award belts, on a Saturday, and it almost always coincides with a soccer game. Priorities. :)
That's not a logical conclusion. The intense workout is to achieve/maintain normal fitness not to enable someone to run a good 10k.
If you can achieve moderate fitness with an intense workout then it seems much more likely to me that a person with such fitness will choose sports or other activities instead of remaining sedentary for the rest of the day.
It doesn't try to prove that they will be equally good at running 10K, or have the same 'mental' benefits. That's a separate issue.
Think about all the people that are unable or unwilling to exercise like you do. Is it nonsense that they could significantly improve their health with short intense exercise? Who cares about fast and slow twitch fibres.
In the weight training community there's a thing everyone calls "newb gains". It's basically this study in played out in a weightroom. In a nutshell, it's that you don't need interesting training programs or massive amounts of gym time to get started. Just a few basic lifts a few times a week. Once you get a baseline, your gains level out and you have to start being smarter with your training. I'll bet a solid handshake that the same general pattern will apply here.
This study took out of shape people that didn't exercise and asked them to exercise. The program isn't so much important as is the fact that getting people doing anything strenuous ends up being beneficial.
Eventually their "gains" will level out and if they want to run a 10k in under 45 minutes, they're going to have do a lot more interesting training.