Do you want to get fit but can’t bear the idea of spending hours down in the gym, busting a gut to improve your wellness? It might please you to learn, then, that there could be an even better way of getting on top of your wellbeing: new research has shown that doing the right exercises can mean that you only have to exercise for a few minutes every day, rather than spending long sweaty hours down at the gym.
Burst training is the new craze that is sweeping the nation and it is also known as High-intensity interval training (or HIT for short). This involves doing exercise in short bursts that are extremely high in intensity. So, for around 30 to 60 seconds you would do an exercise with an incredible degree of commitment and intensity, and this would be followed up by one or two minutes of recovery.
There is no specialist equipment required to do this type of training – it can be something as simple as running up a flight of stairs, or up and down a small but extremely steep hill.
Burst training is thought to work by putting your body into something scientists are calling ‘oxygen debt’. The body then has to work hard to repay this oxygen dept by using energy, found from fat oxidation. Your body is then quite literally burning fat to meet the increased demand that is being placed on it.
Whilst standard, old-fashioned exercise such as walking or running on a treadmill can burn fat at a very slow rate, it does not make your body need to repair itself afterwards, so you do not get all the extra benefits of improved metabolism.
This burst training or HIT is supported by many scientific studies, which have proved that this method burns more fat overall.