Can 4 Seconds of Exercise Make a Difference? | Hacker News Reader

Can 4 Seconds of Exercise Make a Difference?

nytimes.com

I did a quick skim for the details. Here they are for anybody else:

> At first, they sprinted for four seconds, with Dr. Allen calling out a second-by-second countdown, followed by 56 seconds of rest, repeating that sequence 15 times, for a total of 60 seconds of intervals.

> At the end of eight weeks, the scientists retested everyone and found substantial differences. On average, riders had increased their fitness by about 10 percent, gained considerable muscle mass and strength in their legs, reduced the stiffness of their arteries and outperformed their previous selves in activities of daily living, all from about three to six minutes a week of actual exercise.

Why would anyone do this, instead of running for 1 minute and then being done?

Or at least 4x 15sec if you are in terrible shape.

Also, what are the units of "fitness" that increase 10%? That smells fake.

The article doesn't mention a control, either. Talking to a doctor might be enough to motivate increased activity (and better eating), regardless of the minute of activity during the meeting.

Can you sprint for one minute?

Few people can. The specific track and field analogue is the 400m dash.

Dr. Coyle has equity in the company that manufactures the bicycles

Plausible result, but I'll wait for the replication before taking it too seriously.

Exactly my thought when I saw that line. I appreciate the disclosure though. They did also give some ideas for alternative workout methods at the end of the article.

The One Minute Workout has been well documented.

Is one minute of exercise all you need? (2016) https://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/23/health/one-minute-workout...

This study is just bringing down the 20 seconds to 4 seconds, as per the article,

The increased rest time means a longer work out.

Now thats my kind of optimization

I would try it but I can't find the time.

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