The Truth About Exercise M. Mosley

Don't have time to watch an hour but clearly you can't perform strength training for 3 reps of 20 secs each and expect to see improvement. My guess is he is talking about some of the benefits of something like sprints.

he was talking about cardiovascular and insulin resistance

You could get 20 seconds of time under tension, however, which if done with some compensatory acceleration and a controlled negative (but not slow), would net you about 8 repetitions. 3 sets of that would improve your strength.

It was like 20 seconds of sprinting as hard as possible on stationery bike, then rest maybe a minute, 20 seconds sprint, 1 minute rest, 20 seconds sprint

The objective is cardiovascular and insulin resistance.

In 20 seconds of as hard as possible sprint, the muscles use all their glycogen so they release hormones to replace their glycogen.

This does more good than 30 minutes of moderate exercise which is the standard recommendation

Maybe people can devote a couple minutes to this, three times a week, if they don't have time to do more.

This was all based on scientific researchers. Curious if this makes sense to anyone else.

"The First Twenty Minutes" by Gretchen Reynolds looks into this sort of thing as well. short bursts of intense aerobic exercise followed by brief rest, repeat. Twenty minutes of this is better than an hour of lower level cardio, according to her sources.

I found the book almost persuasive. New information on exercise and diet keeps coming out and contradicting last year's information. Hard to tell what's what.

I just want to keep showing up at the gym or pool and doing my workout.

It's called Tabata training. Developed by Izumi Tabata after a study he did in Japan. If it interests you, google tabata and you will find a lot more reading on it.
I think it is mostly cardio training. If you want Popeye arms, you still gotta put the time in with weights.

Check out this article by Steve Magness, Cross country coach at the University of Houston, former Assistant Coach for the Nike Oregon project, Masters of Exercise Science.

http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2012/01/crossfit-endurance-tabata-sprints-and.html

This has been a bit of a UK fad since the program aired here last year, TV journalist Andrew Marr suffered a stroke while doing HIT on a rowing machine.

I read a newspaper article, supposedly promoting HIT, where the, previously untrained, journalist was tested, did 6 wks of HIT, was retested, had 8 wks with no training, then did 6 wks of steady state aerobic training and was retested. He improved after the HIT, but he improved 25% more after the steady state training!

People used to train this way in the 1940s, we've learnt a bit since then, and guess what, things just aren't that simple.

HIT may improve your VO2max, but there would be little improvement in low end endurance performance ie. backpacking.

Dave

I watched the BBC programme and strictly followed the routine for about 6 months. I don't doubt the science, but I didn't notice the usual increase in available endurance you get from regular lower-intensity longer exercise.

The real downside, rarely talked about, is just how brutally unpleasant it is. You have to recalibrate your idea of what a "10/10" on the effort scale is and hit it constantly every time. You are sprinting as if your life depends on it. By the time you get to your third 30s interval, it feels like it lasts a lifetime. If it isn't unbelievably brutal, then you're not doing it right. Your brain will do everything in its power to lower your output by even 1%, and it is a massive *mental* battle to constantly overcome that while you are doing it. Not only that, but there isn't any sort of hormonal or experiential reward.
Once I realized this never gets any better, I stopped and much prefer lower-intensity bike rides and hikes as exercise, despite the time increase.

"I think it is mostly cardio training. If you want Popeye arms, you still gotta put the time in with weights."

It's cardio training for high intensity sports like soccer and basketball, IMO. You're not going to run a marathon off that kind of training, or hike 25 mile days.

Specificity of training.

"It's cardio training for high intensity sports like soccer and basketball, IMO. You're not going to run a marathon off that kind of training, or hike 25 mile days.

Specificity of training."

Ah, the American pursuit of shortcuts :)

If you want to run far, you have to train by running far. If you want to hike far, you have to train by hiking far. If you want to run fast, you have to train running fast. If you want to run far and fast you have to train doing both. If you want to hike fast and far, you have to train doing both.

If you only have a few minutes per day to exercise, you need to re-evaluate your life.

Nick!!!!!!
About the best advice I've read in a long time.

You guys are taking this the wrong way, without watching the programme.
The entire point of it is health benefit. Has nothing to do with increasing athletic performance.
They noted similar heart-health and blood-sugar/insulin level improvements to much longer moderate exercise. No other claims were made.

Nick – you're one of those old people unable to consider any new ideas

This is more aimed at optimizing Olympic athletes, not American's pursuing short cuts

And it's a BBC program (or programme – those brits need to learn how to spell) and Tabata is Japanese

I think more than a protocol to exercise, what's interesting is understanding the physiology

Then, we Americans can make a pill which would be a shortcut

"If you want to run far, you have to train by running far. If you want to hike far, you have to train by hiking far. If you want to run fast, you have to train running fast. If you want to run far and fast you have to train doing both. If you want to hike fast and far, you have to train doing both."

+1 bigtime.

"If you only have a few minutes per day to exercise, you need to re-evaluate your life."

Hilarious. And oh so true!

Another interesting idea in that video – more applicable to BPL maybe.

People have a hard time losing weight. And exercise isn't that effective. Maybe there are some ideas from the video that would help.

In the video, they said you have to exercise vigorously for 20 seconds for the muscles to use up their glycogen stores. Then they release hormones to replenish those stores.

Maybe releasing those hormones would help lose weight. So, if you didn't exercise vigorously enough, it will have little effect.

Or, if they had a pill with those hormones, maybe it would help you lose weight (yeah, American shortcut…)

Or, if someone was genetically pre-disposed to not responding to exercise like they talked about in the video, then maybe exercise won't produce weight loss. Someone could get this test, and if they were unresponsive, then no reason to do a lot of exercising trying to lose weight

Or, if genetically pre-disposed, maybe there's a pill to make you responsive

"People have a hard time losing weight. And exercise isn't that effective. Maybe there are some ideas from the video that would help."

Jerry, I will disagree that exercise isn't that effective.

It is about what kind of exercise and how much time we spend exercising. Losing weight is mostly about how many calories you intake and expend each day. Seems most people want to exercise a few minutes each day and continue with their normal diet. There are two kinds of exercise; aerobic and anaerobic. Each has a different affect on our bodies. Serious athletes train using both during different training cycles.

Before people start exercising, they need to know what their goal is. Lets assume someone wants to get into backpacking shape for a long hike that will include a lot of elevation gain. The first step would be to work on endurance, or "base training." This would be a lot of long hikes at a slower pace, little elevation gain. Once they are in good shape, they need to prepare for the hard elevation gains, let's call that power or interval training. This would be shorter hikes but mostly uphill. The first is aerobic, the second (high intensity for short periods)is anaerobic. Lets take the two first finishers in the 2012 Olympic 10K, Mo Farah and Galen Rupp who trained together. During the base phase they were running over 100 miles per week. As they got closer the race, their mileage dropped and they started doing more interval training (anaerobic). This prepared them to have both endurance and speed. Rather simplified explanation. I am open to new ideas, but out physiology hasn't changed in the past few thousand years :)

Good points, Nick

I forgot to put a emoticon when I called you an old person incapable of new ideas. But the best humour has a grain of truth to it.

Exercise is not effective in that most overweight people try to lose weight, including exercising, but are unsuccessful

"The real downside, rarely talked about, is just how brutally unpleasant it is."

+1 to that.

Also on the Guardian.co.uk news site is the story of the BBC presenter Andrew Marr, who was doing something similar on a rowing machine, ie flat out intervals, and gave himself a stroke straight afterwards :

Andrew Marr, the 53-year-old BBC TV presenter and journalist, made a guest appearance on his own show yesterday, just four months after a life-threatening stroke, which he attributed to "heavily overworking" and an intensive session on a rowing machine.

One of the biggest drawbacks to this sort of exercise is that people who do not have an existing base of fitness are going to be very injury prone. Running slow is very different on your joints than all-out sprinting.
It happens all the time to casual runners trying to get faster. They run easy and slow for a while and then get it in their heads that to get faster they should hit the track and run a bunch of 200M intervals as fast as they can…and bam, there goes a knee or a hamstring…
I hear it's another issue that has been brought on by the "crossfit" movement. With proper coaching, supervision, and form, high intensity is probably fine for most fit people. But when Joe Schmoe gets it in his head that to get "results" he needs to go much harder and faster and heads out to the garage and do power cleans, deadlifts, and box jumps until exhaustion…

But I suppose it's like anything…there will always be "that guy"…

"One of the biggest drawbacks to this sort of exercise is that people who do not have an existing base of fitness are going to be very injury prone."

Big time agreement here.

Galen Rupp's coach, Alberto Salazar, has been coaching him since he started high school. A big focus in his training is to carefully watch and monitor the high intensity workouts. As a result, Rupp has had very few injuries compared to other elite distance runners.

It sucks but one has to work in their discomfort zone to improve their physical ability. Whether that be endurance, strength, or a combination of the two. Exercise is easy. Training is not.

Tabata works well and I used it in the past prior to Alpine Climbs. I quickly got the nickname…The Goat…for how steady and consistent I could climb. But it was brutal training. It hurt. A lot. I hated it but the improvements were very measurable.

"Losing weight is mostly about how many calories you intake and expend each day. Seems most people want to exercise a few minutes each day and continue with their normal diet."

Bang on Nick – at least for me. I lost 20 lbs from Jan to Mar. I used the Lose It app to track my calorie intake. You lose weight by eating less calories than you body needs. The advantage of the exercise is that it increases the base number of calories that you can consume during the day so that you don't feel hungry while you lose the weight. So you actually end up feeding your exercise.

Fwiw, a few observations suggested by my own experience, using HIIT as one of several training tools:

It's not something to be done casually or as the way to start getting in shape. If a friend wanted to start doing HIIT, I'd urge a check-up and doctor's advice first.

It really is "brutally unpleasant," but for some reason I find it much less aversive than longer intervals at lower intensity. I've wondered whether it may be because the worst feeling (at least for me) comes after a given interval is over, early in the rest phase. Anyone else observed this?

A good training foundation before starting HIIT, warm-up before doing HIIT and cool-down afterwards, adequate recovery time and rest in between workouts, and avoiding spending too many days/weeks in a cycle of HIIT are all important.

"If you want to hike far and fast, you have to train doing both."

Well, it depends on what you mean by "far and fast," but it's quite possible to prep well for continuous mountainous 20-25 mile days with twice-weekly hikes of ~ 5-6 miles plus a robust aerobic conditioning program that can be based in part on HIIT. It's a useful approach, since most people can't spend the time for 20-25 mile days during the training phase.

Cheers,

Bill S.

Just a quick note on the calorie burning. It's actually not quite that simple when HIIT is involved. Researches noted a higher base metabolic rate (ie burning calories faster) even up to 12 hours after a HIIT session, something not seem with normal exercise. They talk about how you can be sitting on the couch for hours after a HIIT session and be actively losing weight.