
One Minute of All-Out Exercise May Have Benefits of 45 Minutes of Moderate - brhsiao
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/1-minute-of-all-out-exercise-may-equal-45-minutes-of-moderate-exertion/?_r=0
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xivzgrev
Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick bait.

Its not exercise for 1 minute. Its exercise for 10 minutes, with 1 minute of
that being all out. The actual comparison is 10 minutes vs 45, not 1 minute vs
45 as headline says.

I think author could have said as effectively 10 minutes of interval exercise
may have benefits of 45 minutes of moderate exercise

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bryanlarsen
This is a nice, informative, concise comment. IMO, it would be stronger if it
didn't start with a childish insult.

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ortd
I disagree. It would be weaker if it didn't start with a childish insult.

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shawn-furyan
This is the idea of progressive overload that has been a core tenant of many
weight training programs for a long time. It may be that body composition
changes are primarily adaptive responses to stressers, rather than the typical
simplified model of 'x work burns x calories'. That is, x work may in some
cases be associated, on average, with x calories being shed, but it does not
directly cause that outcome in a straightforward fashion. Rather, it may well
be the case that your body adapts in proportion to the level of stress that it
experiences (that would be consistent with the conclusions here).

Another consideration is that when we assume that natural processes respond
linearly, we seem to have a tremendous track record of being wrong. Even with
that being the case, essentially every model that covers any aspect of fitness
seems to assume linear response. So it's not surprising to see demonstrations
that these models don't hold to reality at the extremes.

Since the Fitbit was released, I've maintained that counting steps is a
useless activity unless you are very old or infirm. I think that practitioners
(i.e. athletes) have long known that intensity is the primary determinant of
changes in body composition and athletic performance. It's seemed to me for a
while that one of many causes of the difficulty people have improving their
bodies is that they 'exercise' rather than 'train'. That is, they think of
their workout as putting in time or quantity of work, rather than just trying
to improve their performance across various physical tests.

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brightball
I lost 40 lbs after high school by working out 10 minutes / night. Pushups til
I couldn't anymore. Crunches til I couldn't anymore. Hitting a punching bag
til I couldn't anymore and when that was all done, wall sits til I couldn't
anymore.

The first three I went as hard and fast as I could. Best shape I've ever been
in.

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sudojudo
>I lost 40 lbs after high school by working out

Nice work. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it should be noted for
anyone struggling to lose weight: Weight loss is 99% diet (calories in,
calories out).

Work out all day long, but if you're at a caloric surplus, you're going to
gain weight. Never work out, but eat less than you burn, and you'll lose
weight.

That said, there are countless benefits to regular exercise, so don't overlook
it.

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brightball
I was also eating subway roasted chicken subs for a lot of meals fwiw.

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ttkeil
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11589373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11589373)

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nathan_f77
I've been doing this every day for the last 4 or 5 days, after reading a
article about the same study. Basically I sprint around my apartment as fast
as possible, try to do clapping pushups as high as possible, do a few forward
rolls, jump as high as possible and try to touch the ceiling, and then repeat
for as long as I can. I'm having a lot of fun, and I think it's definitely
better than nothing. I think it's might even be a good way to get back into
shape, and could increase it to 2 minutes one day.

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Jtsummers

      The volunteers 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. The
      entire workout lasted 10 minutes, with only one minute of that time
      being strenuous.
    

So it's:

    
    
      120 seconds slow
       20 seconds fast
      120 seconds slow
       20 seconds fast
      120 seconds slow
       20 seconds fast
      180 seconds slow
      ================
      600 seconds (10 minutes)
    

What you're doing is fine, and I'll encourage you to continue it or a
variation of it (EDIT: especially since you're having fun, that's a key to
keeping up a routine). However, that's not what the article described. The
article describes a variation of HIIT (high intensity interval training).

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SCAQTony
"All out" is relative. "All out to an Olympian means the "brink of death" or
(220+ heartbeats per minute) and none of these people went all out for a whole
minute; it was 20-seconds, three times.

Reading what they did, The warmup seems too short and no real warm down to
relax the muscles as needed.

"...volunteers 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. The entire workout lasted 10 minutes, with only one minute of
that time being strenuous. ..."

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Havoc
I find that rather difficult to believe. e.g. If you consider the heart-rate.
1 minute of say 180bpm just isn't going to equal 45 minutes of 150bpm. I'm
sure it does scale to some extent but not that dramatically...

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PeterisP
Such experiments essentially make a point that the main results of training
sessions occur not because of the direct action on muscles and calorie burn
_during_ the exercise but rather because of some changes in body self-
regulation that are triggered by the training session but act throughout the
rest of the day/week.

If that 1 minute of 180bpm causes an upregulation of +1bpm (or an increase of
base metabolism for calorie burn) for the whole next week in a way that
moderate exercise doesn't, then it can quite plausibly have significant
effects..

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macavity23
To anyone trying this: make sure you warm up first and stretch afterwards. One
minute of instant-on full-intensity exercise of any kind is just begging for
an injury.

Especially if you're not eighteen any more like me.

~~~
Jtsummers
The routine in the study included a 2 minute warm up and 3 minute cool down,
with 2 minute rests between 20 second sprints. The reporting on this study is
frustrating since they keep implying and/or stating that it's 1 minute of
exercise. It's 1 minute of _strenuous_ exercise.

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andrewvc
Good luck getting people to truly go all out without supervision in a lab or
with a trainer.

These studies have been published before and they don't tell us anything about
what people will actually do with the information.

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ck2
This is nonsense. Like people saying oh you can lose weight by being cold or
breathing harder/more. Sure there is science behind it but in the end it does
not promote maintainable lifestyles.

One minute all out may help athletes already in shape push to the next level.
Like at the end of my long distance runs, I do a wind-sprint all out.

But regular people doing regular exercise benefit much more mentally from
learning HOW to exercise for 45 minutes every day and increasing their
metabolism.

If intensity training for a minute was all you needed, you could do sprints in
the parking lot to train for a 45 minute 10K. Good luck with that.

Intensity training is good for fast-twitch muscle. Endurance training is good
for slow-twitch. The two are not interchangeable.

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WettowelReactor
One of the largest challenges for regular people is finding 45-90 minutes to
exercise in the first place. Research on shortening the length of time
required for effective exercises is a worthwhile pursuit.

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ck2
I might accept that but it feels like a cheating shortcut somehow.

A major part of long distance running (10k+) is the mental aspect.

You are never, ever, going to get the mental endurance and discipline to run
fast for distance by running for a short period of time, no matter how hard.

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adrianN
Most people don't want to be able to run 10k+, they want to stay healthy.
Sports is fun as a hobby, but not everyone wants to have that hobby.

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ck2
This kind of research allows people to think working out for only a couple
minutes is okay if you do it hard.

I think many people could easily train to do 5k and then 10k and get many
benefits. Our very evolution came about from persistence hunting which means
many people should have the genetics for endurance and far fewer for intensity
(speed).

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rasz_pl
7 minute abs are here!

