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The headline is clickbait. It's a huge stretch to say that the volunteers engaged in 1 minute of hard exercise. The workout was: "[they] warmed up for two minu

The headline is clickbait. It's a huge stretch to say that the volunteers engaged in 1 minute of hard exercise. The workout was: "[they] warmed up for two minutes on stationary bicycles, then pedaled as hard as possible for 20 seconds; rode at a very slow pace for two minutes, sprinted all-out again for 20 seconds; recovered with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaled all-out for a final 20 seconds; then cooled down for three minutes." Sure, the exertions total to one minute, but the recovery periods and cooldown are a very important aspect of the workout. Muscles are still burning glucose and oxygen, clearing lactic acid, and generally doing all the things that exercise is good for during this time.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mindcrime 10y ago
"[they] warmed up for two minutes on stationary bicycles, then pedaled as hard as possible for 20 seconds; rode at a very slow pace for two minutes, sprinted all-out again for 20 seconds; recovered with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaled all-out for a final 20 seconds; then cooled down for three minutes." Sounds very similar to the Tabata interval protocol, with the difference being the extended rest period between the "sprint" sections. I have done a variation of this in my own training in the past. It works really well on an elliptical trainer. My subjective feeling is that training this way works pretty well for building endurance and burning fat.
mathattack 10y ago
For all the complaints on methodology, I think the biggest issue is sample size. 25 people?
collinmanderson 10y ago
So actually longer than the "7 minute workout". :)
ASpring 10y ago
Exactly. Let alone the fact that they are using completely untrained individuals, where doing any amount exercise will result in the adaptations they check for. Wish there was a third group that simply did 10 minutes exercise at the same exertion as the endurance group.
- pascal1usa 10y ago
  It's awfully convenient how they left that obvious third group out. I'm willing to bet that the 45 m group never reached their target heart rate
- _Codemonkeyism 10y ago
  The article says “But if you are someone, like me, who just wants to boost health and fitness and you don’t have 45 minutes or an hour to work out, our data show that you can get big benefits from even a single minute of intense exercise.”
- mozumder 10y ago
  For my marathon training, between my long runs, I did spend one day a week to just do one 5-10 minute sprint, at 95-105% max heart rate. ("Oh god I'm going to die..") The days after I did those, were the clearest, most relaxed days of all. I ended up with a resting heart rate in the 30s.
  - hondo77 10y ago
    If you did it for ten minutes, it wasn't a sprint.
  - Ensorceled 10y ago
    How did you do 105% of your max heart rate ...
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity/FitnessBasics/Target-Heart-Rates_UCM_434341_Article.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity... It's not the literal maximum (the maximum you can achieve), it's the average based on age. So you find the maximum for your age in the chart (or calculate it) and set target zones when exercising. http://www.runnersworld.com/ask-the-sports-doc/what-is-my-maximum-heart-rate http://www.runnersworld.com/ask-the-sports-doc/what-is-my-ma... - another discussion about it.
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
So it's 10 minutes, where 9 minutes are slow riding. The comparison group which achieved the same results did 45 min exercises.
Alex3917 10y ago
> It's a huge stretch to say that the volunteers engaged in 1 minute of hard exercise. Active recovery just means staying in some sort of minimal motion to keep your blood circulating and let your heart rate come down a little more gently. It's usually nowhere near the intensity of regular base cardio, so I think the headline is reasonably accurate.
- Retric 10y ago
  They could not sustain this rate over 1 minute. So, it's 10 minutes of interval training with 1 minute of high intensity. Not, 1 minute of working out. They also did not check to see if people 'capped out' sooner.
ttkeil 10y ago
NYT seems to have a number of highly similar articles extolling the benefits of HIIT, but this[0] one reads a bit more honest than the one posted, IMO. Specifically, the author delves into 10-20-30 training, which I've personally started in the past few weeks. It definitely kicks my ass, but I feel great afterwards and it requires significantly less time than moderate exercise. [0]: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/07/29/a-way-to-get-fit-and-also-have-fun/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/07/29/a-way-to-get...
sametmax 10y ago
It also ignore the side effect of unbalanced exercice. It may be better than no exercice though, but you still have to consider it.
jobigoud 10y ago
> the recovery periods and cooldown are a very important aspect of the workout I would say the warm-up is as well, because if you start a full sprint out of nowhere you are likely going to tear a muscle one day or the other.
- epimetheus 10y ago
  I don't think this is true at all. My experience of years of sprinting has given zero such injuries, and usually it's first thing in the morning, and the only warm up I have is walking to the car, driving to the track, walking from the car to the track. I've also never did more than a few incremental warm up sets before lifting (relatively heavy) and have never had a pull or a tear. Warming up is one of those seemingly agreed upon myths in which the scientific evidence is minimal and typically shows the contrary. edit: for example: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/08/why-stretching-may-not-help-before-exercise/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/08/why-stretching-may-not... And to add to this, it doesn't even make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Having a physiology that requires warming up muscles before needing to escape a threat would be weeded out pretty quickly. A predator attacking a camp of humans, for instance, would allow those that can run fast without their "muscles pulling or tearing" to escape leaving those without such an advantage laying about groaning in pain while the predator gets their fill.
  - eyeJam 10y ago
    if warming up is just a myth, i dare you to deep-squat two plates without any warmup or mobility exercises. even better, try it after a day at the office sitting for 8 hours. i'll have the wheelchair ready to wheel you out when you slip a disc.
  - duderific 10y ago
    Upvoted for the evolutionary perspective. One thing to add though: ancient humans were undoubtedly in better overall fitness than the average modern person, so maybe that would lead to it being unlikely that they would suffer sprinting-related injuries in general -- in other words they were more "warmed up" at any given time than the modern human.
wbhart 10y ago
Something has definitely gone wrong in either the study, the journalism, or with the person who wrote the headline. From the reporting here, there is nothing whatsoever that makes me believe the one minute of strenuous exertion had anything to do with the result. Why on earth didn't they have a control group that did 10 minutes of slow cycling instead of a bunch of couch potatoes that did nothing? For all we know, the people who actually turned up for the study regularly to do the actual rides walked far further to get to and from the study than the people who did nothing. And for all we know, 10 minutes of slow cycling has the same measurable effect as 45 minutes of cycling. What on earth is wrong with medical science/science journalism, that this is the end result of however many dollars of public money? Are they worried that if they actually do a really large, robust study that all future funding will have dried up? Surely there is a massive public interest in such research. Why doesn't someone just do the sodding research and find out once and for all?
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  Why on earth didn't they have a control group that did 10 minutes of slow cycling instead of a bunch of couch potatoes that did nothing? It's the journalism that failed you. If you go to a quality site like mensfitness rather than NYT, you'll find: "To prove it, the researchers put 27 sedentary men to the test. For 12 weeks, nine of the men were asked to perform three weekly sessions of intense sprint interval training on stationary bikes, 10 were assigned to moderate-intensity continuous training (also on bikes), and six served as the control group, completing no exercise. ... "After three months, all the athletes exhibited similar results and health benefits—even though the moderate-intensity continuous training involved five times as much exercise and a five-fold greater time commitment." http://www.mensfitness.com/training/workout-routines/10-minute-cycling-workout-thats-just-effective-50-minute-routine http://www.mensfitness.com/training/workout-routines/10-minu...
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    I believe wbhart is saying the control group should be 10 minutes of low-intensity cycling, not 45 minutes or 0 minutes. Or the control group could even just come to the lab to sit on the bike without pedaling! This study has too many variables.
Bartweiss 10y ago
At a quick glance, everything here is totally consistent with "exercise is good" and "HIIT can get you benefits faster than steady-pace exercise". Both of which seem way more obvious and evidence-backed than the claims actually made here.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mindcrime 10y ago

"[they] warmed up for two minutes on stationary bicycles, then pedaled as hard as possible for 20 seconds; rode at a very slow pace for two minutes, sprinted all-out again for 20 seconds; recovered with slow riding for another two minutes; pedaled all-out for a final 20 seconds; then cooled down for three minutes." Sounds very similar to the Tabata interval protocol, with the difference being the extended rest period between the "sprint" sections. I have done a variation of this in my own training in the past. It works really well on an elliptical trainer. My subjective feeling is that training this way works pretty well for building endurance and burning fat.

mathattack 10y ago

For all the complaints on methodology, I think the biggest issue is sample size. 25 people?

collinmanderson 10y ago

So actually longer than the "7 minute workout". :)

ASpring 10y ago

Exactly. Let alone the fact that they are using completely untrained individuals, where doing any amount exercise will result in the adaptations they check for. Wish there was a third group that simply did 10 minutes exercise at the same exertion as the endurance group.

pascal1usa 10y ago
It's awfully convenient how they left that obvious third group out. I'm willing to bet that the 45 m group never reached their target heart rate
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
The article says “But if you are someone, like me, who just wants to boost health and fitness and you don’t have 45 minutes or an hour to work out, our data show that you can get big benefits from even a single minute of intense exercise.”
mozumder 10y ago
For my marathon training, between my long runs, I did spend one day a week to just do one 5-10 minute sprint, at 95-105% max heart rate. ("Oh god I'm going to die..") The days after I did those, were the clearest, most relaxed days of all. I ended up with a resting heart rate in the 30s.
- hondo77 10y ago
  If you did it for ten minutes, it wasn't a sprint.
- Ensorceled 10y ago
  How did you do 105% of your max heart rate ...
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity/FitnessBasics/Target-Heart-Rates_UCM_434341_Article.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity... It's not the literal maximum (the maximum you can achieve), it's the average based on age. So you find the maximum for your age in the chart (or calculate it) and set target zones when exercising. http://www.runnersworld.com/ask-the-sports-doc/what-is-my-maximum-heart-rate http://www.runnersworld.com/ask-the-sports-doc/what-is-my-ma... - another discussion about it.

_Codemonkeyism 10y ago

So it's 10 minutes, where 9 minutes are slow riding. The comparison group which achieved the same results did 45 min exercises.

Alex3917 10y ago

> It's a huge stretch to say that the volunteers engaged in 1 minute of hard exercise. Active recovery just means staying in some sort of minimal motion to keep your blood circulating and let your heart rate come down a little more gently. It's usually nowhere near the intensity of regular base cardio, so I think the headline is reasonably accurate.

Retric 10y ago
They could not sustain this rate over 1 minute. So, it's 10 minutes of interval training with 1 minute of high intensity. Not, 1 minute of working out. They also did not check to see if people 'capped out' sooner.

ttkeil 10y ago

NYT seems to have a number of highly similar articles extolling the benefits of HIIT, but this[0] one reads a bit more honest than the one posted, IMO. Specifically, the author delves into 10-20-30 training, which I've personally started in the past few weeks. It definitely kicks my ass, but I feel great afterwards and it requires significantly less time than moderate exercise. [0]: http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/07/29/a-way-to-get-fit-and-also-have-fun/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2015/07/29/a-way-to-get...

sametmax 10y ago

It also ignore the side effect of unbalanced exercice. It may be better than no exercice though, but you still have to consider it.

jobigoud 10y ago

> the recovery periods and cooldown are a very important aspect of the workout I would say the warm-up is as well, because if you start a full sprint out of nowhere you are likely going to tear a muscle one day or the other.

epimetheus 10y ago
I don't think this is true at all. My experience of years of sprinting has given zero such injuries, and usually it's first thing in the morning, and the only warm up I have is walking to the car, driving to the track, walking from the car to the track. I've also never did more than a few incremental warm up sets before lifting (relatively heavy) and have never had a pull or a tear. Warming up is one of those seemingly agreed upon myths in which the scientific evidence is minimal and typically shows the contrary. edit: for example: http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/08/why-stretching-may-not-help-before-exercise/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/08/why-stretching-may-not... And to add to this, it doesn't even make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Having a physiology that requires warming up muscles before needing to escape a threat would be weeded out pretty quickly. A predator attacking a camp of humans, for instance, would allow those that can run fast without their "muscles pulling or tearing" to escape leaving those without such an advantage laying about groaning in pain while the predator gets their fill.
- eyeJam 10y ago
  if warming up is just a myth, i dare you to deep-squat two plates without any warmup or mobility exercises. even better, try it after a day at the office sitting for 8 hours. i'll have the wheelchair ready to wheel you out when you slip a disc.
- duderific 10y ago
  Upvoted for the evolutionary perspective. One thing to add though: ancient humans were undoubtedly in better overall fitness than the average modern person, so maybe that would lead to it being unlikely that they would suffer sprinting-related injuries in general -- in other words they were more "warmed up" at any given time than the modern human.

wbhart 10y ago

Something has definitely gone wrong in either the study, the journalism, or with the person who wrote the headline. From the reporting here, there is nothing whatsoever that makes me believe the one minute of strenuous exertion had anything to do with the result. Why on earth didn't they have a control group that did 10 minutes of slow cycling instead of a bunch of couch potatoes that did nothing? For all we know, the people who actually turned up for the study regularly to do the actual rides walked far further to get to and from the study than the people who did nothing. And for all we know, 10 minutes of slow cycling has the same measurable effect as 45 minutes of cycling. What on earth is wrong with medical science/science journalism, that this is the end result of however many dollars of public money? Are they worried that if they actually do a really large, robust study that all future funding will have dried up? Surely there is a massive public interest in such research. Why doesn't someone just do the sodding research and find out once and for all?

CWuestefeld 10y ago
Why on earth didn't they have a control group that did 10 minutes of slow cycling instead of a bunch of couch potatoes that did nothing? It's the journalism that failed you. If you go to a quality site like mensfitness rather than NYT, you'll find: "To prove it, the researchers put 27 sedentary men to the test. For 12 weeks, nine of the men were asked to perform three weekly sessions of intense sprint interval training on stationary bikes, 10 were assigned to moderate-intensity continuous training (also on bikes), and six served as the control group, completing no exercise. ... "After three months, all the athletes exhibited similar results and health benefits—even though the moderate-intensity continuous training involved five times as much exercise and a five-fold greater time commitment." http://www.mensfitness.com/training/workout-routines/10-minute-cycling-workout-thats-just-effective-50-minute-routine http://www.mensfitness.com/training/workout-routines/10-minu...
- cpeterso 10y ago
  I believe wbhart is saying the control group should be 10 minutes of low-intensity cycling, not 45 minutes or 0 minutes. Or the control group could even just come to the lab to sit on the bike without pedaling! This study has too many variables.

Bartweiss 10y ago

At a quick glance, everything here is totally consistent with "exercise is good" and "HIIT can get you benefits faster than steady-pace exercise". Both of which seem way more obvious and evidence-backed than the claims actually made here.