You may want to get the recommended daily exercise you need to maintain your weight and wellbeing, but finding the time is another matter. General wellness guidelines state that you need to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise a week to stay healthy. However, according to new research, published in the Public Library of Science One, just twelve minutes of exercise a week could be enough. Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology argue that four-minute bursts of vigorous exercise three times a week could raise oxygen intake levels and decrease blood pressure and glucose levels.
However, Dr Thomas Lee, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, raised some concerns about this claim. He noted, ‘Short episodes of very intense exercise can raise one’s risk for a stroke or heart attack or fatal arrhythmia during, or right after, the burst of exertion. I think this approach, which used to be known as “intervals”, is very reasonable and accepted among young athletes … I don’t encourage it among most of my older patients.’
For the ten-week study, 13 men took part in four-minute sessions of intense exercise, three times a week, while another 13 completed three 16-minute sessions, each divided into four-minute segments. These men were overweight, but otherwise healthy, and both groups demonstrated similar outcomes. Oxygen intake increased by 10% in the four-minute exercise group and 13% in the 16-minute group. However, the 16-minute exercise group did prove more effective at lowering cholesterol and body fat.
According to author Arnt Erik Tjønna, ‘A growing body of evidence suggests that exercise training with low-volume but high-intensity may be a time-efficient means to achieve health benefits. The 1-AIT type of exercise training may be readily implemented as part of activities of daily living and could easily be translated into programmes designed to improve public health.’ He added, ‘Since we know that more and more people are inactive and overweight, the kind of improvement in physical fitness that we saw in this study may provide a real boost for inactive people who are struggling to find the motivation to exercise.’
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