What if you could get fit and possibly lose weight in just six minutes a week?
From Eileen: The biggest excuse everyone has for not exercising, of course, is the “I don’t have enough time” lament.
I’ve talked about that before in terms of importance … meaning if something is important enough to you, there’s always enough time. (There’s always enough time to eat and sleep and watch TV, right?)
But here’s another way to attack the time problem: What if you could get fit in just six minutes a week? Yep, six minutes a week!
Gretchen Reynolds writes in the New York Times about a study that was done by Martin Gibala, PhD, and chairman of the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Using stationary bikes, he had one group of students exercise for about five hours a week at a moderate pace. Another group only exercised for about six minutes a week … but they went balls out for 20 to 30 seconds with short rest periods in between.
After two weeks, both groups showed identical increases in endurance. In addition, there were molecular changes that signaled increased fitness equally in both groups. The short bursts of exercise also aided in weight loss.
Reynolds writes:
There’s a catch, though. Those six minutes, if they’re to be effective, must hurt. “We describe it as an ‘all-out’ effort,” Gibala says. You’ll be straying “well out of your comfort zone.” That level of discomfort makes some activities better-suited to intense training than others. “We haven’t studied runners,” Gibala says. The pounding involved in repeated sprinting could lead to injuries, depending on a runner’s experience and stride mechanics. But cycling and swimming work well. “I’m a terrible swimmer,” Gibala says, “so every session for me is intense, just because my technique is so awful.”
The full results of the study should be available by fall. We can hardly wait!