Getting Intense:
The benefits of short, high-energy workouts
By Tim Stobierski, senior, University of Connecticut
If you feel like you have no time for fitness, think again. Even a small amount of exercise can have benefits. Researchers from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, have found that people who had regular high-intensity fitness sessions of even three minutes a few days a week could boost their metabolism, helping them process sugars, burn calories, and lose weight. Plus, high-intensity workouts are great for the cardiovascular system and for warding off diabetes.
“What we have found is that doing a few intense exercises [a couple times a week], each lasting only about 30 seconds, dramatically improves your metabolism in just two weeks," says Professor James Timmons, one of the lead researchers. He added that the results should be encouraging for those who have trouble sticking with an exercise program and fitting fitness into their schedule.
Fitness experts call a regimen based on this type of exercise high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. An example of an HIIT workout is doing each of the following with as much vigor as possible for 30 seconds with a very brief rest between each:
- Push-ups
- Jumping jacks
- Squats
- Burpees (a combination exercise of squats, push-ups, and vertical jumps)
- Stationary lunges
To find out more about HIIT, CLICK HERE.
The Positives of Pushing It
In addition to improving the metabolism, vigorous exercise is good for the heart. “The heart is composed of muscle, and if you work it hard, it only gets stronger,” says Melissa Evans, assistant professor in the Health and Physical Education Department at the Tarrant County College Southeast Campus in Fort Worth, Texas. She adds that vigorous exercise burns more calories, tones the body, gives a lower resting heart rate, and may improve mental performance by increasing blood and oxygen flow to the brain.
“You’re going to get more benefits from 30 minutes of high-intensity exercise than you would from a longer period of more moderate exercise,” says Millie Sweesy-Barger, adjunct professor and yoga instructor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California.
After doing several high-intensity drills, Sweesy-Barger had a blood test that amazed her physician. “My doctor couldn’t believe how high my HDL levels were,” she says. “That’s the good cholesterol, and it was elevated from these workouts.”
Johanna Stenersen, a 53-year-old student at Orange Coast College, takes yoga classes with Sweesy-Barger, bikes everywhere, and does an hour of vigorous weight training up to four days a week. She does all her reps to fatigue, and if she’s not tired after 10 to 12 reps, she increases the weight by 5 to 10 pounds. “There’s no point in staying in the gym and prolonging something that you can do in a shorter amount of time with more intensity,” says Stenersen. “My gains have been phenomenal, and the older I get, the more I want to be fit.” She also says that the vigorous weight training helps maintain her bone density.
Defining Exercise Intensity
For high-intensity aerobic exercise, you want to aim for somewhere in the range of 80% to 90% of your maximum heart rate, measured in beats per minute (BPM). You can estimate your own maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Intensity in terms of anaerobic exercise (strength training) is measured by the amount of resistance that muscles have to overcome in order to contract.
If very high-intensity anaerobic exercise is your goal, you may want to try having enough weight so that you can lift it only 2 or 3 repetitions, or reps. Heavier loads ensure that you are working all of your muscle fibers.
4 Basic Workout Tips
1. Start Small
“You can’t go from being a couch potato to an all-star athlete overnight,” says William J. Kraemer, professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. “If your body isn’t used to exercising, you’ve got to ease into it.”
If you haven’t been exercising, you might have to start out with a lower intensity. Sixty percent of your maximum heart rate is a good place to begin for aerobic training, especially if your gym sessions have been few and far between over the past couple of months. And for weight-training, you want to start out with weights you can comfortably lift with a repetition maximum of 8 to 12, according to the American College of Sports Medicine.
“It might take a month or so to get your body used to exercising, so you have to be patient,” Kraemer says.
Once you feel that you’ve gotten your body used to the demands of an exercise program, you can work yourself up to higher-intensity workouts.
2. Rest
When you exercise you put a lot of stress on your body, but this stress is a good thing. It triggers your body to repair itself and grow so that you become stronger. But you have to give your body the opportunity to repair itself because growth happens after exercising.
“If you’re pushing yourself hard on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you’ve got to take those other days off to let your body repair itself,” says Kraemer.
3. Switch Things Up
“Your body adapts pretty easily to a workout schedule,” says Warren Terry, a senior at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “You’ve got to constantly push it to keep it on its edge.”
You can keep your body progressing doing a wide variety of exercises. The cross-training approach ensures that you’re hitting all of the major muscle groups, which contributes significantly to overall fitness.
Compound exercises, which work more than one muscle group, are another great way to maximize your workout. Think squats and bench presses versus exercises like bicep curls that work minor muscle groups in isolation.
4. Stick With It
It may take some time to find the high-intensity routine that you like best. When you do, stay with the routine to see results. If you keep your workout short and full of high energy, you may be more likely to find the time to stay fit and improve your overall health.
TIM STOBIERSKI IS A SENIOR ENGLISH MAJOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT.