The Truth About Exercise

I can see how the short bursts in the program could give some benefits but I'm far from convinced that it's better for you than doing 3-5 hours or reasonable intensity exercise.

I do 45 minutes of cardio each day (run 5km then either cycle or row) and 15 minutes of weights/pushups/etc and I've been doing that for 3 months with a weight loss of about 13kg and a noticeable increase in fitness.

I struggle to see how the 3 minutes of high intensity exercise would achieve the same health benefits even if it's better than doing nothing and I think it's a bit misleading to suggest that a decent exercise regime isn't both better and achievable. It feels a bit like they are telling people what they want to hear (i.e. you can feel justified laughing at idiots who go to the gym religiously because for 3 minutes each week you can be just as healthy).

Don't get me wrong, I think HIIT has some real benefits and I work it into my own routine but it's very much part of it rather than all of it. Would certainly be interested to hear from anyone who has a proper understanding of this though!
 
Unless I missed it, they never mentioned any warmups before doing the HIIT? I can't imagine it's good for you to go from nothing to all out intensity, then back to nothing without a warm up and cool down.

I do a lot of cycle training, and have a coach who prescribes me a mix of lower steady state and (now its getting towards race season) higher intensity training. The lower intensity work is essential to create a strong base on which to build. Yes it takes time but it does work and cannot be replicated by high intensity. The high intensity is the icing on the cake......and the super high intensity is the cherry.

I'm not discounting it completely - I guess it's better than nothing for people that can't be bothered to exercise properly, but I suspect the people that can't find an hour to train because they are busy watching eastenders, won't be the sort of people prepared to endure the level discomfort that tabata brings!
 
George Hincapie said:
I'd wager the vast majority of people have no idea what pushing themselves to the max actually feels like.
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Interesting comment - and fair enough if you are talking about CV training. However, its idiots who don't know when to stop when strength training i.e. because they think they are pushing themselves to the "max", who normally end up with serious injuries.
 
Sagalout said:
Unless I missed it, they never mentioned any warmups before doing the HIIT? I can't imagine it's good for you to go from nothing to all out intensity, then back to nothing without a warm up and cool down.

I do a lot of cycle training, and have a coach who prescribes me a mix of lower steady state and (now its getting towards race season) higher intensity training. The lower intensity work is essential to create a strong base on which to build. Yes it takes time but it does work and cannot be replicated by high intensity. The high intensity is the icing on the cake......and the super high intensity is the cherry.

I'm not discounting it completely - I guess it's better than nothing for people that can't be bothered to exercise properly, but I suspect the people that can't find an hour to train because they are busy watching eastenders, won't be the sort of people prepared to endure the level discomfort that tabata brings!
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The difference is though, you're aiming for a particular goal, and have a coach who's working with you on it. Your solid base is for exactly that, a solid base. I don't think anyone is going to say that an Olympic athlete could do 3 minutes exercise and compete, but for your average joe, it isn't a bad way to get the fitness level up. I'd imagine (I haven't looked at the research particularly in depth), that they'd find that after a certain point, you plateau if you only do HIIT, and you probably then have to supplement it with other training exercises, or at least largely increase the amount of HIIT you're doing.

kd
 
jakesnake said:
the human body is amazing. we dont fully use all of our brain, so the potential is massive.
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We do when were children but as we grow up (around puberty) parts of the brain start to shut down (and die so cant be fired back up) if their not getting used, hence why learning is easier the younger you are.
 
King Damager said:
The difference is though, you're aiming for a particular goal, and have a coach who's working with you on it. Your solid base is for exactly that, a solid base. I don't think anyone is going to say that an Olympic athlete could do 3 minutes exercise and compete, but for your average joe, it isn't a bad way to get the fitness level up. I'd imagine (I haven't looked at the research particularly in depth), that they'd find that after a certain point, you plateau if you only do HIIT, and you probably then have to supplement it with other training exercises, or at least largely increase the amount of HIIT you're doing.

kd
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I can't remeber the exact studies because I'm in work at the moment so can't see the papers but studies which involved obese males didn't see significant improvement in VO2 max but time to fatigue increased significantly. And studies with recreationally active university males shown an increase in VO2 max. So it does initially depend on your current fitness, but if you're obese and you do a training session that goes over 6 weeks for example then you're bound to see improvements to things that don't improve over 2 weeks. What you'd do is say you were pretty fit at the moment is increase instenity on a training day basis to a point where its literally deathly and keep at that for a few sessions before trying to increase. You may plateau at a certain intensity but that doesn't mean your performance wont increase. If its still hurting then adaptations are still occuring.

I'll post up some papers and stuff showing the different effects of training periods, intensities and everything.
 
A word of warning - high intensity exercise is a very, very good way to injure yourself, be careful, especially when sprinting (running)!

I find the best exercise for this barbell complexes, have a good google. A good full body work out. I do with a light weight (6 reps of each) at a fast pace:

Deadlift
Straight leg dead lift
Bent over rows
Cleans (hang cleans?)
Front squats
Push-shoulder press
Back squats
Good mornings
*get rid of the bar*
Press-ups

Rest for 90 seconds, go again, a total of 5 times.

I squat 5x5 at about ~85kg and find a bar of ~25kg good for this.

Try it out :eek:
 
perhaps the program should have been "not the complete truth about exercise" as it creates the wrong picture:

You’ve just done an hour on the treadmill, followed by a Zumba class and 20 lengths of the pool. Then you get the call from the man in a white coat. ‘Sorry, Mr Watson, but our tests reveal you’re a non- responder.’ So, instead of those three hours down the gym, I might just as well have been down the pub for all the good it’s done me. Bummer.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/reviews/8...d-that-the-gym-is-a-bit-rubbish#ixzz1nuHFTBpd
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Even if you are a non responder you are likely to gain more muscle tone, flexability and overall cardiovascular fitness/stamina- not to mention a better chance of calorie reduction through the 1 hour on the treadmill, the zumba class and 20 lengths of the pool than a 3 minute HIT on an exercise bike? There is also the effect of long term and legthy periods of exercise that cleans the gunk from out of your cells to consider along with the feel-good factor. PFT, 3 minute HIT more like 3 minute ***** for people that require something for nothing. It's a fair guess to assume “non-responders” seen in the research literature is probably due to the wrong stimulus. Of course people have a highly individual response to training but the goal should be to figure out what kind of training each individual responds best to before jumping to conclusions about such things.
 
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Jono said:
Well, I ran about ... a mile up a hill and back down again, walking some of it because I was dead. I'm going to repeat this process every day for the rest of the week. I expect to have lost some weight by the end of April.
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Have a guess at how much weight you would lose on a 26.2 mile marathon?

In fact, Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days and how much do you think he lost?
 
LabR@t said:
depends on what he was eating :D
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Absolutely and he had to eat something like 6000 calories a day to keep him fuelled up.
When I was doing marathons I'd have quite a few calories before I started and then family members would be at different locations with Mars Bars and energy drinks.

I was going to give Jono a car analogy:

You have a car that does 10 miles per litre and it is exactly 10 miles to work & back every day.
Every morning you drive 1 mile to the garage and put 1 litre in, drive the 4 miles to work and 5 miles back home and continue this for 1 month.
At the start you had 20 litres in your tank but how much petrol have you now got left after a month?
 
Can you include the HIIT during a normal exercise like running or cycling at a normal pace for an hour or doesn't it have the same effect than if you just did HIIT for a minute but nothing before or after? Also, should you bother doing HIIT at all if you do 6+ hours of exercise a week anyway or would it actually improve your performance?
 
Whyte et al. (2010)

10 men, aged between 18 and 40, BMI - 31.0 ± 3.7 kg m-2, body mass - 93.9 ± 12.8 kg and all sedentary. 6 training sessions over a 2 week period. Training were repeated 30s all out wingate tests at 0.065 kg per kg of fat free mass. With a 4.5 minute recovery time (cycling at 30W) between each sprint. Four repeated sprints were completed on sessions 1 and 2, 5 repeated sprints on sessions 3 and 4, and finally 6 sprints on sessions 5 and 6. There was 1 to 2 days of recovery between each session. Various test were ran pre and post intervention to obtain test results and baselines readings before hand and of course familiarization tests.

Main findings were V̇O2 max significantly increased, mean power during the Wingate tests increased, moderate but significant reductions in anthropometric measurements to waist and hip circumferences, improved insulin sensitivity, increased resting fat oxidation and reduced systolic blood.


Pretty sure I have another paper or two with testing of obese / over weight males but not lots and no offensive but I really can't be bothered trawling through paper after paper reading new stuff just for the sake of the internet especially on a subject I don't have a lot of interest in but know that it works, so you'll just have to believe me. :p But I'll post up some other papers training session test and results that I do have when I've got time.


mufc802 said:
Can you include the HIIT during a normal exercise like running or cycling at a normal pace for an hour or doesn't it have the same effect than if you just did HIIT for a minute but nothing before or after? Also, should you bother doing HIIT at all if you do 6+ hours of exercise a week anyway or would it actually improve your performance?
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Of course you can and of course it would.
 
think a lot is just down to genetics some people can train work out eat healthy and still not make forty yet some can smoke 60 fags a day live on fried foods and make a hundred

i dont think your meant to do too much excercise . stress yourself a little maybe but not run marathons and so on . light work out .
 
So since losing 5stone I only just started going to the gym last week got my plan all sorted with the fitness guy watching this programme really is depressing :p

Will be interesting to see what results im going to get with my current new regime.
I'm still classed as obese with a bmi of 31.63 instead of the 42.93 this time last year. I have led and still am leading quite a sedentary lifestyle but changing it by going to the gym for an hour 3 times a week doing 2 days of that cardio and the other day muscle building to try gain what was lost after surgery and taking up cycling in my spare time as well suppose only time will tell but I will ask him when im next down about adding some of this hit stuff at a later date.

Anyone else really fancy getting all those tests done would be nice to know if we were in the unlucky 20%.
 
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