

High Intensity Training Improves Health, Physical Function in Middle Aged Adults - doorhammer
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4085611/

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rquantz
Part of the problem with this study is the same as that seen in most studies
in exercise science -- they only study untrained participants and last, say,
10 weeks (or 8, in this case) And then there are the tiny tiny sample sizes
(14 individuals??). The fact is, doing almost anything is better than doing
nothing. That's good news for the people who do nothing, I guess, because you
can literally start parking two blocks from work every day and start seeing
improvement.

But because of this novice effect, we don't really get a sense from the
studies what the actual optimal ways of exercising are. It's after that
initial period (say, 10 weeks) of going from doing nothing to doing something
that you start to hit plateaus and have difficulty improving. This is the
point where the difference between various forms of exercise would start to
become clear, and yet that's when studies always stop.

Is doing 3 sets of 5 better than 5 sets of 5? Is HIIT better than long, slow
distance for cardiovascular conditioning? We have lots of anecdotal evidence
of how to improve physical conditioning past the initial novice period, but
very little in the way of rigorous studies. So for now and the foreseeable
future, if we are to decide what to do once doing literally anything is no
longer enough to make improvements, we'll just have to rely on "bro science"
and the experience of various coaches who see a lot of trainees to decide how
best to exercise.

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jdnier
You seem to be missing the practical upshot: If you are middle aged, not
exercising, and moderately overweight, HIT twice a week is an effective way to
"significantly" improve your aerobic capacity, physical function, and reduce
your blood glucose levels. Whether HIT is the optimal way to accomplish that
is not the question they were investigating. It's a small sample size but was
effective for all eight participants. It works in practice, whether or not you
understand why it works theory. There are lots more interesting questions
around the edges that can be explored now.

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bcbrown
Everything works. HIT works. Riding your bike once a week works. Walking every
day works. Taking up tennis, or soccer, or frisbee works. The point is, short-
duration studies on the untrained provide little to no information. It would
have been much more interesting to test and compare 3-5 different exercise
modalities.

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doorhammer
Lot of mentions of whether or not the person is sedentary/just starting off.
I'm no expert in these areas, but an interesting additional bit of info on
HIIT in highly trained individuals:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11772161](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11772161)

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sidamo
Anyone else think it's odd that the control group had a mean BMI of 24 (i.e:
high end of normal range) and the HIT group had a mean of 29 (high end of
overweight, almost obese)?

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timje1
BMI is a quick but very rough way of measuring health, particularly regarding
'fit' individuals - muscle is far more dense than fat.

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tghw
The "McMaster Studies" showed similar, that short sprint/rest interval
training (30 second sprint, 4 minute rest, 250% of VO2 max) was equally
effective as moderate long distance (90-120 minutes of 65% of VO2 max).

[http://jp.physoc.org/content/575/3/901.full#sec-19](http://jp.physoc.org/content/575/3/901.full#sec-19)

~~~
xiaoma
An excellent book called _Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?_ by Alex
Hutchinson discussed that research and more recent research that followed up
on it. Basically the gains from those two types of training come from
improving different pathways, which explains why both sprinters and distance
athletes tend to get the best results from incorporating both types of
training in their regimens.

~~~
jclos
He is not really an academic but from a practical point of view Alex Viada
explains how he programs his weekly training around his requirements in
powerlifting and long distance running (which are on the opposite ends of the
spectrum in terms of energy systems):
[http://www.atlargenutrition.com/blog/2012/11/hybrid-
athlete-...](http://www.atlargenutrition.com/blog/2012/11/hybrid-athlete-alex-
viada-so-you-want-to-run-and-be-strong/)

~~~
x0x0
fucking christ

Dude claims he's going for an elite total (combined 1642 raw) at 220 while
training for an ironman. That's insane.

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capkutay
I'm personally a die-hard fan of HIT. I've never been able to keep up cardio
regiments like jogging or biking simply because it takes too much time in my
schedule and I get extremely bored 20+ minutes into either of those
activities.

Not to brag, but HIT has kept me in very good shape. As a software engineer
who cares about efficiency, 15-20 minutes of HIT versus 60-90 minutes of
jogging/biking just makes more sense to me. Throw on joint pain from jogging
on concrete and the perils of high-speed biking, HIT on a machine is a no-
brainer.

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edanm
How do you do HIT? You mention a machine, so I'm wondering what exactly you
do.

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bcbrown
I use a rowing machine. When I'm relatively untrained, I start with rowing at
a steady rate, working up to 20 minutes. Then I add in HIIT, starting at 20
seconds work/ 40 seconds recovery. When I can do 6-8 intervals, I'll change
the rest/work ratio to 30/30, then 20/10\. For the work intervals, I row as
hard as I can, a pace of around 1:30-1:40 per 500m. For recovery, I row as
slow as I can, around 4:00/500m.

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x0x0
tl;dr:

Study attempts to determine whether high intensity training (HIT) consisting
of 10 6-second sprints w/ a one minute recovery between sprints performed
twice weekly improves metabolic health and decreases type 2 diabetes risk in
untrained middle aged (35-58 y/o) people. It appears yes.

also, a bmi of 29 (yes, yes, all you bodybuilders and powerlifters and
strongman I know all about it) is tubby but not quite obese. It's kind of
shocking how little effort this is. [1] is a good visual illustration of what
a 29bmi looks like

[1] [http://www.fourhourfit.com/results-and-
tracking/pat-p90x-res...](http://www.fourhourfit.com/results-and-
tracking/pat-p90x-results-and-tracking/#!prettyPhoto)

~~~
pangram
Yeah, I was surprised by the fact that such a short duration of exercise (11
minutes of exercise twice / week) could have such a large impact on health. I
wish there were more details on how much exercise each group had before the
study -- my question is whether HIT on its own is good enough, or does it
require normal exercise as well?

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Dewie
Conventional wisdom says that you're not really working out unless you spend
10-25 minutes on warm up, an hour or more on working out, and some stretching
to finish off and/or a cool down. That isn't even counting the time to go to
the gym or the park, or the shower afterwards. No wonder people are inactive.

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tinco
What conventional wisdom is that? The standard for warm up is 5 minutes isn't
it? And a standard work out is 20-25 minutes as far as I'm aware. You can do a
whole work out in 30 minutes.

My runs are 5 minutes warm up, I spend those 5 minutes walking to get from my
house to a park, then 20-25 minutes running around the park (c25k plan) and
then 5 minutes of walking back. You can fit that into almost any part of your
day.

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azatris
What about dressing up for the jog and afterwards showering and dressing up
again? Also most people don't have a park in a 5 minute walking distance. I
would say for most people they take 10-30 minutes to get to the training
place, train at least 20 minutes and then 10-30 minutes back again and then
5-10 minutes of shower. Now that is quite a large part of the day.

