Whats wrong with sprint interval training?
You might have seen news reports about a recent study showing that less than 10 minutes of intense exercise a week could be “as effective as an hour of daily moderate activity.” “Short bouts of very intense exercise improved muscle health and performance comparable to several weeks of traditional endurance training,” says study co-author Martin Gibala, an associate professor in the department of kinesiology of McMaster. Here in England, the research was featured on breakfast TV, and I got a lot of questions from people wanting to know “if it was really true.” Let’s take a closer look at what happened in the study to see what it all means for you. The research, published in the June 2005 edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, shows that just 15 minutes of sprint interval training over a two-week period was enough to improve exercise performance by almost 100%. The study was conducted on 16 subjects, all of whom were “recreationally active.” In other words, they took part in some
