Thursday, February 5, 2009

More Reasons To Love Your Health and CrossFit

John A Babraj, Niels BJ Vollaard, Cameron Keast, Fergus M Guppy, Greg Cottrell and James A Timmons. Extremely short duration high intensity training substantially improves insulin action in young healthy males. BMC Endocrine Disorders IN PRESS.

"A regular high-intensity, three-minute workout has a significant effect on the body’s ability to process sugars. This research shows that a brief but intense exercise session every couple of days may be the best way to cut the risk of diabetes." Prof. James Timmons from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland, investigated the effect of ‘high-intensity interval training’ (HIT) on the metabolic prowess of sixteen sedentary male volunteers. What they have found is that doing a few intense muscle exercises, each lasting only about 30 seconds, dramatically improves your metabolism in just two weeks.

Current exercise guidelines suggest that people should perform moderate to vigorous aerobic and resistance exercise for several hours per week. While these guidelines are very worthwhile in principle, Timmons suggests that a lack of compliance indicates the need for an alternative.

The low volume, high intensity training utilized in our study substantially improved both insulin action and glucose clearance in otherwise sedentary young males.

The subjects in this trial used exercise bikes to perform a quick sprint at their highest possible intensity. In principle, however, any highly vigorous activity carried out a few days per week should achieve the same protective metabolic improvements. Timmons added, “This novel approach may help people to lead a healthier life, improve the future health of the population and save the health service millions of pounds simply by making it easier for people to find the time to exercise”.

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