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It's a clickbaity title, because it's not really one total minute of exercise. What this is unraveling is the benefits of HIIT (high intensity interval training

It's a clickbaity title, because it's not really one total minute of exercise. What this is unraveling is the benefits of HIIT (high intensity interval training). They did a very basic and very minimal form of intervals, because they tested on a population of untrained, unadapted individuals. They basically did a: * 2 minute warmup * 20 seconds all out sprint * 120 seconds of slow pace to catch your breath * repeat 2 more times So in total, the "hard work" was 1 minute, but you're actually active and in the gym for about 10-11 minutes. The benefit here is the metabolic boost from strenuous work lasts much longer than steady-state cardio, and this has been observed in previous studies. The problem is that humans are incredibly adaptable - so 1 minute of hard exercise cannot be applied indefinitely. You will need to increase that time in order to see continuous benefits, as well as vary the amount of strenuous exercise that is continuously performed. Anyone who has never trained before is going to see benefit from some physical activity, but as soon as they are adapted, the benefits disappear without progressive loading.

petra 11y ago
Even with adaptation, would something like 10 minutes of the right exercise still suffice?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
WalterSear 11y ago
You assume there aren't ways to make exercise more strenuous.
- Avshalom 11y ago
  That's why acconrad said "without progressive loading", that's the point you have to continually make it more strenuous.
- acconrad 11y ago
  There's two ways to make exercise more strenuous: increase the load/intensity, or increase the duration/volume. So practically speaking for HIIT, if the premise here was you went "all out", you can't possible go more intense than "all out" because you gave a max effort. So the only other variable to fix is to do more of it.
  - aqme28 11y ago
    You can go more intense than "all out," because as your body adapts, "all out" _is_ more intense. If I'm out of shape, a 30 second sprint might not be as fast as when I'm in shape.
    - hondo77 11y ago
      No, "all out" is always the same intensity. As Greg LeMond said, "Hills don't get easier. You just get faster."
  - alonmower 11y ago
    While I agree with you that you'll need to increase the time to see real benefits it's also not true that you can't go more "all out". As you get stronger you'll be able to peddle harder, your peak wattage will go up, and you'll have effectively increased the intensity compared to where you were before. Now obviously if this is the only exercise you're getting you're still going to hit a ceiling pretty soon.
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    As my ability to go all out goes up, so does my ability to increase intensity. But, mostly I was referring to weights. I'm talking from experience.
  - PKop 11y ago
    Also continuously modify / rotate the movement / exercise being done. Avoids the adaptation to a specific type of movement, all else being equal. [edit] But also, speaking from many years of experience with Crossfit and military high intensity circuit training... your explanation leaves out a little bit: High intensity can be achieved in different ways depending on how your workout is structured. If a given workout specifies the movements, how much weight to use, and how many reps / sets to do, then your independent variable becomes the time it takes to complete. To increase the intensity, complete the workout faster. Thus you see in many interval workouts, one's "score" is their time. Getting better over a period of time means decreasing the time for a given workout of this structure. Second, a given workout can specify movement(s), weight, and workout time, say 20 mins. And the independent variable becomes reps and/or sets. Your score, and axis to increase intensity then is doing more reps/sets. Third, workout specifies movement, time, rep/sets. Variable / score / axis for improvement is then what weight did you use. Or, if it is some kind of increasing weight ladder within the workout (work up to X rep max)... what weight did you work up to. Lastly, one can view selection of movement(s) themselves that , put together make up a given workout, holding weight, time, and reps generally constant, as a another axis along which one can move along to avoid a plateau / adaptation to a workout one would see from repeating the same workout structure over and over. Increases in overall work capacity are achieved by improving performance along all of these different axes, for multiple different exercises / movements, as well as collections of movements that together make up specific "workouts / circuits". While not necessarily randomizing, but at least varying workout structure along these axes deliver optimal efficiency (most bang for your buck... time and effort spent in the gym) and results when results are measured in terms of GPP[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_physical_preparedness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_physical_preparedness These are the general principles that Crossfit and other circuit style workouts follow. The key insight these programs use is not falling into one repeated structure of workout done over and over without variation, that most people naively employ when working out in the gym, that is never modified and thus quickly becomes adapted to. (Go to gym and do X reps for Y sets at Z weight. Take your time, no sense of urgency or goal of completing in as little time as possible. Time thus becomes fixed, as well as the general rep/set structure. Plateau is reached and intensity of workout is low).
criddell 11y ago
> You will need to increase that time in order to see continuous benefits If you don't increase, do you lose any benefits you gained? A few years ago I made a modest workout plan because I wanted to be a bit stronger, a bit more flexible, and have more stamina. I achieved my goals and flipped into a maintenance mode where I basically do just enough exercise to stay where I am. By not pushing for new bests, am I no better off than if I had done nothing?
- theFletch 11y ago
  In short, no. If you're happy with where you're at by all means maintain and you'll be better for it. If you did nothing you'd slowly slip back to your previous condition.
pc86 11y ago
Increasing the intensity as you adapt will prolong the benefits, as will shortening rest. For example, a tabata is pretty much the standard of this type of training, and is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes (8 rounds total) and can be completed with any movement. And the goal is typically to maintain the same intensity throughout, not to get the highest total number. So if you're doing calories on a stationary bike, 10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10 is much better than 15-13-12-10-8-6-5-5 (usually).
- mattmcknight 11y ago
  Yeah, the Tabata study[1] came out about 20 years ago and works well as part of Olympic athletic training (initially developed with speed skaters), is widely used as part of CrossFit, etc. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392
- bitL 11y ago
  Can you really maintain the same intensity with Tabata if you push as much as you can during each interval? I see a downwards trend all the time on myself, and after 3rd minute I can't feel my legs at all, so I am sure I am giving it all I can. On the other hand, when doing 3x 7-minute HIIT, I increase load in each subsequent try, going to like >2 pushups/second etc. (but this was motivated by knee injuries in the first try when I went all out from the start) Also, from personal experience, try stationary bike for 30 minutes, maintain >60rpm all the time and do 1-3 minutes of "easy" (meaning 1/3 difficulty setting on your bike) and then 1 minute "hard" (100% difficulty setting, still >60rpm), and repeat. I always start sweating like being in a rain after 20 minutes, and this exercise is doing wonders to my anaerobic capacity.
  - pc86 11y ago
    It's a lot harder to maintain the same numbers when you are going all out, which is why it's "better" (subjectively) to meet that goal. Obviously if you phone it in the first four rounds you're not doing yourself much good comparatively.

petra 11y ago

Even with adaptation, would something like 10 minutes of the right exercise still suffice?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

WalterSear 11y ago

You assume there aren't ways to make exercise more strenuous.

Avshalom 11y ago
That's why acconrad said "without progressive loading", that's the point you have to continually make it more strenuous.
acconrad 11y ago
There's two ways to make exercise more strenuous: increase the load/intensity, or increase the duration/volume. So practically speaking for HIIT, if the premise here was you went "all out", you can't possible go more intense than "all out" because you gave a max effort. So the only other variable to fix is to do more of it.
- aqme28 11y ago
  You can go more intense than "all out," because as your body adapts, "all out" _is_ more intense. If I'm out of shape, a 30 second sprint might not be as fast as when I'm in shape.
  - hondo77 11y ago
    No, "all out" is always the same intensity. As Greg LeMond said, "Hills don't get easier. You just get faster."
- alonmower 11y ago
  While I agree with you that you'll need to increase the time to see real benefits it's also not true that you can't go more "all out". As you get stronger you'll be able to peddle harder, your peak wattage will go up, and you'll have effectively increased the intensity compared to where you were before. Now obviously if this is the only exercise you're getting you're still going to hit a ceiling pretty soon.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  As my ability to go all out goes up, so does my ability to increase intensity. But, mostly I was referring to weights. I'm talking from experience.
- PKop 11y ago
  Also continuously modify / rotate the movement / exercise being done. Avoids the adaptation to a specific type of movement, all else being equal. [edit] But also, speaking from many years of experience with Crossfit and military high intensity circuit training... your explanation leaves out a little bit: High intensity can be achieved in different ways depending on how your workout is structured. If a given workout specifies the movements, how much weight to use, and how many reps / sets to do, then your independent variable becomes the time it takes to complete. To increase the intensity, complete the workout faster. Thus you see in many interval workouts, one's "score" is their time. Getting better over a period of time means decreasing the time for a given workout of this structure. Second, a given workout can specify movement(s), weight, and workout time, say 20 mins. And the independent variable becomes reps and/or sets. Your score, and axis to increase intensity then is doing more reps/sets. Third, workout specifies movement, time, rep/sets. Variable / score / axis for improvement is then what weight did you use. Or, if it is some kind of increasing weight ladder within the workout (work up to X rep max)... what weight did you work up to. Lastly, one can view selection of movement(s) themselves that , put together make up a given workout, holding weight, time, and reps generally constant, as a another axis along which one can move along to avoid a plateau / adaptation to a workout one would see from repeating the same workout structure over and over. Increases in overall work capacity are achieved by improving performance along all of these different axes, for multiple different exercises / movements, as well as collections of movements that together make up specific "workouts / circuits". While not necessarily randomizing, but at least varying workout structure along these axes deliver optimal efficiency (most bang for your buck... time and effort spent in the gym) and results when results are measured in terms of GPP[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_physical_preparedness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_physical_preparedness These are the general principles that Crossfit and other circuit style workouts follow. The key insight these programs use is not falling into one repeated structure of workout done over and over without variation, that most people naively employ when working out in the gym, that is never modified and thus quickly becomes adapted to. (Go to gym and do X reps for Y sets at Z weight. Take your time, no sense of urgency or goal of completing in as little time as possible. Time thus becomes fixed, as well as the general rep/set structure. Plateau is reached and intensity of workout is low).

criddell 11y ago

> You will need to increase that time in order to see continuous benefits If you don't increase, do you lose any benefits you gained? A few years ago I made a modest workout plan because I wanted to be a bit stronger, a bit more flexible, and have more stamina. I achieved my goals and flipped into a maintenance mode where I basically do just enough exercise to stay where I am. By not pushing for new bests, am I no better off than if I had done nothing?

theFletch 11y ago
In short, no. If you're happy with where you're at by all means maintain and you'll be better for it. If you did nothing you'd slowly slip back to your previous condition.

pc86 11y ago

Increasing the intensity as you adapt will prolong the benefits, as will shortening rest. For example, a tabata is pretty much the standard of this type of training, and is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes (8 rounds total) and can be completed with any movement. And the goal is typically to maintain the same intensity throughout, not to get the highest total number. So if you're doing calories on a stationary bike, 10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10 is much better than 15-13-12-10-8-6-5-5 (usually).

mattmcknight 11y ago
Yeah, the Tabata study[1] came out about 20 years ago and works well as part of Olympic athletic training (initially developed with speed skaters), is widely used as part of CrossFit, etc. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897392
bitL 11y ago
Can you really maintain the same intensity with Tabata if you push as much as you can during each interval? I see a downwards trend all the time on myself, and after 3rd minute I can't feel my legs at all, so I am sure I am giving it all I can. On the other hand, when doing 3x 7-minute HIIT, I increase load in each subsequent try, going to like >2 pushups/second etc. (but this was motivated by knee injuries in the first try when I went all out from the start) Also, from personal experience, try stationary bike for 30 minutes, maintain >60rpm all the time and do 1-3 minutes of "easy" (meaning 1/3 difficulty setting on your bike) and then 1 minute "hard" (100% difficulty setting, still >60rpm), and repeat. I always start sweating like being in a rain after 20 minutes, and this exercise is doing wonders to my anaerobic capacity.
- pc86 11y ago
  It's a lot harder to maintain the same numbers when you are going all out, which is why it's "better" (subjectively) to meet that goal. Obviously if you phone it in the first four rounds you're not doing yourself much good comparatively.