Doctor Says 20-Second Workout Can Make You Slimmer and Healthier | ABC News Blogs - Yahoo
For many of us, exercising can be a chore, but what if your workout could be over in just 20 seconds?
Dr.
Michael Mosley believes that three 20-second bursts of high-intensity
training, three times per week, can make people skinnier and healthier.
He calls the concept "fast exercise," and describes the approach in his new book, also titled "Fast Exercise."
Scroll Down to See Quick Workouts from 'Fast Exercise'
It's the latest in the apparent trend of rapid workouts. First, there was the seven-minute workout, then the four-minute plan.
ABC News correspondent Juju Chang met Mosley at Reebok Sports Club in New York to go through the paces of the routine.
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Mosley
explained that the key to effective, high intensity workouts are doing
short bursts of intense exercise. He said they seem to be much more
effective for weight loss as well as for insulin resistance.
Science
shows that what's beneficial about exercise is the stress and intensity
of the workout, not the duration, Mosley said. The benefits of this
type of exercise regimen include reduced risks of cancer and diabetes.
For Mosley, it's personal.
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"Two
years ago I discovered I was a diabetic," Mosley said. "I was a bit
overweight. That moved me into … fast exercise. And now I'm 20 pounds
lighter and my blood sugars are completely normal. I've gone from
diabetic to normal."
Mosley is also the bestselling author of "The Fast Diet,"
which outlines a weight-loss plan in which participants can eat what
they want for five days a week, but must fast for two non-consecutive
days.
As a guinea pig for his own research, Mosley says he doesn't need a fancy gym, or even gym clothes.
"Stair running is a fabulous form of exercise," he said. "You can do it in any building which has three floors."
But can a few minutes a week really work?
Daniel Rohanna teaches high-intensity workouts at Reebok. He understands that people have a lot going on in their lives.
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"For
a lot of people it's 'I've got kids, I've got my job, I've got to get
groceries.' It's really nice to get in, get out, hit it hard and I'm
done, but I don't think 10 minutes, three times a week is going to be
enough," he said.
Mosley said scientists all over the world are finding health benefits from doing better workouts in less time.
Try These Workouts From 'Fast Exercise'
*You should consult your physician before starting this or any exercise routine.
The Bare Minimum. 40 seconds hard exercise (2 x 20 seconds) Total - 4-6 minutes, including recovery.
Unbelievably,
there is evidence that just 40 seconds of intense activity can make a
difference. In 2011, Dr. Niels Vollaard and colleagues at Bath
University did a study in which they asked fifteen healthy but sedentary
young men and women to try something they called REHIT (reduced
exertion high-intensity training) for six weeks.
He started them
off in the first week with a couple of minutes of gentle cycling, then
one 10-second burst of intense cycling followed by a couple of minutes
of cool down. In weeks two and three, each exercise session consisted of
a warm-up, fifteen seconds of all-out sprinting, a couple of minutes of
recovery, another fifteen seconds of all-out sprinting, then the gentle
cool down.
For the final three weeks they cranked it up so each
exercise session consisted of two 20-second flat-out sprints separated
by a couple of minutes of recovery.
Despite the fact that over the
six weeks the volunteers had done less than ten minutes of hard
exercise, both the men and the women showed significant improvements in
their aerobic fitness - with a measure known as VO2max, the maximum
volume of oxygen used by the body, up 15% and 12% respectively. When it
came to insulin sensitivity, there was a gender difference: the men's
sensitivity improved by 28% while the women's did not improve.
Vollaard
is currently carrying out further studies to see if this gender
difference is real and also to see if people with metabolic syndrome and
diabetes get similar improvements.
He is also keen to investigate
in the future whether a single burst of 20 seconds done three times a
week makes a measurable difference. If you are only doing a few bursts,
20 seconds seems to be the minimum time for a burst that will make a
difference.
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The
basic principle here is to push yourself in two 20-second bursts. The
most obvious activity to choose is cycling, since that was what they did
in the trials; if you are doing it indoors, you will need an exercise
bike with variable resistance on which you can crank up the intensity
mechanically; and, if cycling outside, you will need to find a hill,
preferably quite a steep one, and use gravity to increase your workload.
But in principle, any of the activities above will work fine. In the
case of running, you will need to find some way of cranking up the
resistance for your 20-second spurts - either mechanically, on a
treadmill in the gym, or by using a hill if you are outside.
- Start off with a couple of minutes of gentle pedaling/running/swimming.
- When you feel ready, speed up and work your body as hard as you can for 20 seconds then slow down.
-
Repeat the sprint after you've had a couple of minutes of gentle
pedaling/jogging/walking to recover. Recovery time is important.
In
total, the bare minimum should take less than ten minutes. Mosely likes
to do it on an exercise bike (see box below) and, now that he's more
used to it, he does it in less than four minutes by minimizing warm-up
and cool down and by cutting his gentle pedaling to about a minute.
If
you are very unfit or have never tried HIT before, it may be worth
slowly building up the sprints from 2 x 10 seconds to 2 x 20 seconds.
Once you have mastered 2 x 20 seconds you may want to add on another
20-second sprint which, along with the recommended recovery period, will
add another couple of minutes to your regime.
First find a quiet
stairwell in a building with at least four full floors. If you are
unfit, you may want to spend a few weeks walking up the four flights
before attempting anything more adventurous.
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When you feel up to it, try bounding up the stairs for 20 seconds. And I mean bounding.
If you are a beginner, this should be long enough to make you breathe
heavily and to feel the buildup of fatigue in your thighs. As you get
fitter you will find that you need to run for longer, up more stairs, to
get the same feeling.
Ideally take the lift down to where you
started, or in a tall building just pause for 1-2 minutes to catch your
breath before bounding up another few floors.
The 30-Second Sprinter. 2 minutes hard exercise. Total - 16 minutes, including 14 minutes recovery
This
is similar to the 20-second sprints that we have just described, except
that you will need a longer recovery period between sprints because
going from 20 seconds to 30 seconds of all-out sprinting is much more
demanding.
If you are not used to HIT, you should start gradually,
preferably by working your way through a 20-second regime first, then
trying 2 x 30 seconds and building up from there.
Make time to do a
couple of minutes of warm-up and ensure you are mentally ready before
starting your first sprint. Between each sprint pedal gently for 3-4
minutes to recover (you will need it).
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This
regime is based on the original HIT studies, which were done in Canada
and were called SIT (sprint interval training). The Canadians found that
doing four 30-second sprints (interspersed with a few minutes of
recovery) three times a week led to similar improvements in fitness as
running or cycling at a steady speed for many hours a week.
30-second sprint/bike:
4 x 30-second sprints on a bike. Make time to do a couple of minutes
warm-up before starting your first sprint. Between each sprint take 3-4
minutes to recover by pedaling at a gentle pace (you will need it).
Then take at least 2 minutes to cool down.
30-second sprint/run:
4 x 30-second running sprints up a hill. Warm up by running at a gentle
pace to your chosen hill. Then sprint for 30 seconds up the hill; walk
down or around for a few minutes, then do it again. And again. And
again. Finish by jogging slowly home. Stretch if you like.
30-second sprint/swim:
If you like swimming, do the first few lengths at a gentle pace. When
you are ready, try swimming 25 meters flat out (or count to 30 in your
head). Take a bit of a breather, then continue gently swimming a couple
more lengths. Then do another sprint. Repeat four times. Finish with a
very gentle couple of lengths.
The 60-Second Workout
2½ minutes hard exercise, total - 10-11 minutes, including 8 minutes recovery
This
is one of my favorite approaches and a format I have used for many
years. It's very simple: the basic principle is to alternate 60-second
bursts of activity with 90-second recovery periods - for example, 1
minute on, 1½ minutes off. It's wonderfully flexible: it can be done
with any of the activities listed above, like cycling, running,
swimming, and can be scaled down or up according to what you require.
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You
might think that 60 seconds of HIT has to be tougher than 30 seconds,
but this version is not. The 60-second workout evolved out of work done
by the sports science team at McMaster University when they were trying
to find an effective but "gentler" version of the challenging
30-second Sprinter. The key difference is that you don't push yourself
quite as hard. Instead of going flat out, you exercise for a minute at
about 90% of your best effort, aiming to push your heart rate up to
around 80% of your maximum heart rate (see section on measuring the
impact of exercise at the back of the book) by the end of the first
minute. (To find out your HR max, see the reference section at the
back.)
In the original studies they asked the volunteers to do 10 x
1-minute bursts of HIT with 90 seconds recovery in between each burst.
This is what I do. More recently researchers from Metapredict (a group
of exercise academics) have begun testing a less demanding variant,
involving a maximum of 5 x 60-second bursts alternated with 90-second
recovery periods.
The less fit should definitely start with three
bursts; if you are super keen, and really want to push your limits, you
can do the full 10 (this is effectively the Roger Bannister version,
and particularly beneficial if you are preparing for an endurance
event). Our recommendation, if you are basically quite fit, is that you
aim for a steady five. So:
- Two minutes of warm-up.
- 5 x 60-second bursts of activity, with 90 seconds recovery between each burst.
- One minute of cool down.
The Fat Burner: 8 minutes hard exercise, total - 20 minutes, including 12 minutes recovery
This
workout involves a repetitive cycle of eight seconds of intense
activity alternated with twelve seconds of recovery, and is only really
suitable for an exercise bike. It is based on two key Australian studies
by Stephen Boutcher, which showed that HIT could lead to significant
fat loss.
After a brief warm-up, you cycle hard against resistance
for eight seconds, then gently for twelve, then hard against resistance
again for eight seconds, and gently for twelve, and so on.
Copyright
2013 by Parenting Matters Limited and Peta Bee from FASTEXERCISE
published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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