"A group of pensioners came into the lab twice a week for six weeks and went hell for leather on an exercise bike for six seconds. They would allow their heart

"A group of pensioners came into the lab twice a week for six weeks and went hell for leather on an exercise bike for six seconds. They would allow their heart rate to recover and then go for it again, eventually building up to one minute of exercise by the end of the trial." It actually sounds like they work up from 6 seconds in their first session to a minute per burst after a few weeks. The 6 seconds number is incredibly misleading in general, since this is just where they started out to get acclimated. It also leads me to believe that in the long run you may have to keep increasing this interval to get additional benefits. (Much like any endurance training.) I can imagine after a year maybe these folks would need to be doing 10 minute bursts. This would be awesome of course if they get there, and is still an improvement over the treadmill slog, but the headline here seems to make people think there is some free lunch in that you only need to do 6 seconds of exercise at a time to get healthy.