High Intensity Training "Only 12mins training req a month" Horizon BBC2 28th Feb

ECO_Mental

Hi,

Not a fitness man myself, but just interested did any of ye see the Horizon program last night.

They have done research saying that all you need is 12mins of high intensity training a month to keep fit. From what I can remember 3no. 3*20sec sessions a week.:rolleyes:

Any comments! just curious to see what the experts here think.

thanks
EM

AntiVirus

It made his body perform better but I didn't see anything to prove that he was in fact any fitter?

Didn't he end up in the none performing group, the group that doesn't respond well to exercise. :pac:

In fact what it proved was that sitting on your arse is not the best way to exercise

Please Kill Me

If 12 mins training a month was all you needed to be fit, everyone would do it! It's a load of sh!te IMHO.

Hanley

And what happens to the gains in these HIIT studies... they tail off very quickly.

Mellor

Basically, it means that doing 3 sessions of 3*20sec efforts a week results in you being slightly more able for 20 second efforts than a guy doing nothing.

Well, no surprises there really.
But that's not "fit" by my definition.

SBWife

Mellor wrote: »

Basically, it means that doing 3 sessions of 3*20sec efforts a week results in you being slightly more able for 20 second efforts than a guy doing nothing.

Well, no surprises there really.
But that's not "fit" by my definition.

Actually he saw no VoMax improvement - genetically he is a non-responder to exercise - but saw a significant improvement in his body's insulin response.

tmc86

It used to be that it was recommended to do 3 x 20min excersise a week minimum so it makes no sense that it is now 3 x 20sec a week!

if that were true then people who do normal intensisty excersises regularly like running or going to the gym, should be a lot fitter

TheZ

Is this the same as the four hour body by timothy ferriss

Hanley

SBWife wrote: »

Actually he saw no VoMax improvement - genetically he is a non-responder to exercise - but saw a significant improvement in his body's insulin response.

A genetic non-responder to exercise?

SBWife

If you watch the show it's not given as a general recommendation and certainly there's no suggestion that individuals who are exercising stop doing what they are doing and just do 90 seconds of tabitha intervals a week.

What they do say is that there are results from the 90 second approach and it plus an increase in general activity may improve health for the vast majority of people who get no exercise. If you're already exercising incorporating 3 HIIT intervals a week may improve insulin response which given the prevalence and consequences of diabetes should be worth the investment.

Hanley

tmc86 wrote: »

It used to be that it was recommended to do 3 x 20min excersise a week minimum so it makes no sense that it is now 3 x 20sec a week!

if that were true then people who do normal intensisty excersises regularly like running or going to the gym, should be a lot fitter

That doesn't make sense. The physiological adaptations are entirely different depending on the intensity of your training.

SBWife

Hanley wrote: »

A genetic non-responder to exercise?

Seemingly certain people do not increase aerobic capacity in response to exercise. There is a genetic marker and the journo featured had that marker. His results were right out in the tail of the sample when they retested his VoMax after the Month on the HIIT workouts.

Hanley

SBWife wrote: »

Seemingly certain people do not increase aerobic capacity in response to exercise. There is a genetic marker and the journo featured had that marker. His results were right out in the tail of the sample when they retested his VoMax after the Month on the HIIT workouts.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight... I'm gonna call bullsh*t on that so. Sounds like something taken wildly out of context tbh. I googled it, got to wiki, and followed the source to an NY Times article - http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/12/health/why-some-people-won-t-be-fit-despite-exercise.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm and this is the big sentence in the article for me "'We tested, trained and retested them with the same program".

I'm sure everyone can see where i'm going with this.

menoscemo

SBWife wrote: »

Actually he saw no VoMax improvement - genetically he is a non-responder to exercise - but saw a significant improvement in his body's insulin response.

While doing the 3 minutes HIT a week he also moved about a lot more (can't remember the term they used) as per the other 'experts' recommendation. How do you know the improvement in insulin repsonse was not as a result of this and not the HIIT?

SBWife

Should they retest using a different program? Surely the results would be invalid if the testing criteria changed? There are pretty standard protocols for testing VoMax.

Hanley

menoscemo wrote: »

While doing the 3 minutes HIT a week he also moved about a lot more (can't remember the term they used) as per the other 'experts' recommendation. How do you know the improvement in insulin repsonse was not as a result of this and not the HIIT?

Did his diet change as well??

It's all far too much of an integrated process to say for sure.

AntiVirus

SBWife wrote: »

Seemingly certain people do not increase aerobic capacity in response to exercise. There is a genetic marker and the journo featured had that marker. His results were right out in the tail of the sample when they retested his VoMax after the Month on the HIIT workouts.

His results are exactly what you would expect from just doing 3*20 seconds of HIT a week. You don't need to look at someones genetic's to tell that their aerobic capacity is not going to increase much just doing that.

If he spent that month doing 3*60 minutes of exercies a week I bet the results would be different.

SBWife

menoscemo wrote: »

While doing the 3 minutes HIT a week he also moved about a lot more (can't remember the term they used) as per the other 'experts' recommendation. How do you know the improvement in insulin repsonse was not as a result of this and not the HIIT?

That's true but if you recall there were controlled studies being done by the doc in Glasgow - the journo's results mimicked those of the controlled experiment. It's the usual dilemma when reporting on this stuff, the decision to add the human interest can move the science into the background and change the focus.

SBWife

AntiVirus wrote: »

His results are exactly what you would expect from just doing 3*20 seconds of HIT a week. You don't need to look at someones genetic's to tell that their aerobic capacity is not going to increase much just doing that.

If he spent that month doing 3*60 minutes of exercies a week I bet the results would be different.

Most subjects saw an increase with the HIIT according to the results shown. As I mentioned previously his results were out on the tail of the sample.

According to the NYT article linked by Hanley the same happens for certain people on a conventional exercise program.

JJJJNR

I tried this during my winter training and I have been impressed with it esp handy if I am having a busy week, I have done 2min on 1min off and after about 10mins (on) am fairly happy to finish.

Old_-_School

There were lots of interesting aspects to the programme that I never knew:
(a) That there are two types of fat, visceral fat and subcutaneous.
(b) That people can be super-responders or non-responders to exercise or somewhere in between.
I wonder did they investigate a link to see if people who were prone to one of the fat types and being more likely to be a non-responder or super-responder e.g. the presenter was prone to visceral fat and was a non-responder. Is that a common scenario?
I agree with one of the researchers that chairs are killers, between sitting in them for work or for leisure (TV, laptops, ipads, etc.) they definitely must be a large contributor towards visceral fat. It makes me realise that the Xbox Kinect and Nintendo Wii aren't so bad after all.
At first I though the 1 minute workouts would only be beneficial for health purposes, but seeing that it reduces the fat in your blood as well as improves your Vo2Max (for non-non-responders) it means it will work for weight loss and improving fitness as well.

hardCopy

I haven't seen the program yet I bet there will be a slew of people on here looking for weight loss advice and claiming to be non-responders.

SBWife

hardCopy wrote: »

I haven't seen the program yet I bet there will be a slew of people on here looking for weight loss advice and claiming to be non-responders.

Given that diet is the primary factor in weight loss why would this be an issue? Non-responders don't improve their aerobic capacity, they can still eat less and burn calories through exercise?

AntiVirus

SBWife wrote: »

Most subjects saw an increase with the HIIT according to the results shown. As I mentioned previously his results were out on the tail of the sample.

According to the NYT article linked by Hanley the same happens for certain people on a conventional exercise program.

All subjects saw an increase, including him but they never said how much of an increase. Just spending a month walking around more than you did the previous month would see an increase.

SBWife

AntiVirus wrote: »

All subjects saw an increase, including him but they never said how much of an increase. Just spending a month walking around more than you did the previous month would see an increase.

He says on the BBC website and on the show that "my aerobic fitness had not improved at all" and his results were at the left axis of the graph shown. Where did you see a mention of improvement?

Old_-_School

SBWife wrote: »

Given that diet is the primary factor in weight loss why would this be an issue? Non-responders don't improve their aerobic capacity, they can still eat less and burn calories through exercise?

Also, non-responders have only just been discovered as a species, well with some degree of a scientific basis anyway. I'm sure an exercise regime exists that they will respond to, just not the traditional regimes.

ebixa82

I'M NOT FAT, I'M BIG BONED A NON RESPONDER!

cc87

The researcher carrying out all the HIT and VO2 stuff in it says himself it takes at least 6 weeks to notice real changes in maximum aerobic capacity so for there to be no difference after 4 weeks isnt surprising or IMHO even relevant.

AntiVirus

SBWife wrote: »

He says on the BBC website and on the show that "my aerobic fitness had not improved at all" and his results were at the left axis of the graph shown. Where did you see a mention of improvement?

I was sure I heard him say it on the program but I may have picked it up wrong. I've managed to find a copy on the internet so I'll watch it again tonight. I'll let you know if I find it or if I picked it up wrong.

cc87

His performance did improve, his maximum ability did not improve. It took him longer to reach his VO2 max and he says himself it was easier to perform second time round. There is a visible improvement in his performance in the second test. He is not struggling as much and looks more comfortable throughout the test.

p.pete

Just watched the program last night and found it very interesting. I think one of the main points of HIIT they were trying to make was that while for 20% of people they may not improve their VoMax, for 80% they likely will (including 15% high responders), and other markers, including insulin resistance which is a huge issue, potentially being increased across the board. They in no means said it was the best way to exercise, or that people doing more exercise and who enjoy it should start doing less. For the huge proportion of people who don't exercise, many of whom try occasionally but can't stick to it, it potentially offers a means of increasing their fitness in a manner that might be realistic for more people.

Diminished gains? Yes, if you keep doing the same thing gains will diminish. Same with any other exercise. A better question is are gains sustained?

A problem with test-train-test not showing improved results? Really? Most people can improve their ability at IQ tests by practising to do IQ tests - If 20% train and don't show improvement second time round and 80% do personally I think non-responders is a reasonable label for them. Personally I would expect to see an improvement, so I find it interesting that there's a group who don't.

Results exactly what you'd expect to see after 3x20s? Yes, me too. What I wouldn't expect is for 80% of people to have improved.

Will we start seeing lots of 'non-responders' on here? It seems not, the thread has been dead for the last four days. Personally I see a potential benefit for people knowing if their body is likely to respond in one way or another. It also allows research to focus on finding exercise regimes to focus on finding strategies that do work for that group.

What I find most interesting is the huge negativity for the idea. Yes, the way most science programs try to mimic research is never a proper replication, one person sample, and generally blended with multiple other studies. But what they are mimicing is research already carried out, there are proper results / science there that can be attacked, it's too easy to attack the journalist bringing the idea to the mainstream. Most people responding on a fitness forum are going to be people who take fitness seriously, fair enough, but I think it's unfortunate that a potential benefit for a larger section of people could be missed.

ray jay

p.pete wrote: »

What I find most interesting is the huge negativity for the idea.

Part of the problem is using the label "fitness" when the focus of the study is actually very narrow. VO2max is only one of many factors comprising physical fitness.

AntiVirus

p.pete wrote: »

I think one of the main points of doing very little HIIT they were trying to make was that while for 20% of people they may not improve their VoMax, for 80% they likely will (including 15% high responders)

Just corrected that there

p.pete

ray jay wrote: »

Part of the problem is using the label "fitness" when the focus of the study is actually very narrow. VO2max is only one of many factors comprising physical fitness.

Indeed - there was no mention of increasing strength, none about flexibility, and to be honest the examples they were showing of the presenter cycling I was seriously worried he was going to do himself an injury.

They discussed V02max being a strong marker for resilience to illness, so for the training to not be able to reliably improve this (for 20%), it was discussed as a negative / failing of the process.

Other markers looked at were the insulin resilience - again not strictly "fitness", but very definitely "health" and very definitely "important". It's not being held up as something that's going to fix everything in the world, for it to be so easily knocked for not indefinitely improving a broad spectrum of areas I think is unfair.

p.pete

AntiVirus wrote: »

Just corrected that there

Cheers - yes their first study was doing a lot of HIIT I think, and then their second study which was the focus here - and found the same results - was doing 'very little HIIT'.

supine

haven't seen the episode but read the article on bbc news. one problem i can see with the training in the program is that it doesn't follow the tabata method strictly enough.

the guy did 20 seconds, then recovered, and did that 3 times. in proper tabata, he should have done 20 seconds, 10 seconds rest, and done that 8 times, for a total of 4 minutes. as he has seen, the high intensity if the 20 seconds has benefits on insulin or whatever, but it's the lack of proper recovery going into the 4th, 5th, 6th - 8th reps.

The idea is that the anaerobic system fuels the sprints at the start but when it can't restock fuel fast enough for the latter stages, it needs to use the fuel in the aerobic system to keep you going. So it's not just the intensity of the exercise, or necessarily it's duration, it's the lack of a proper rest time in between.

This was the method in the original study. I would like to see what improvements the dr on horizon would have had if he did that a few times a week

Hanley

supine wrote: »

haven't seen the episode but read the article on bbc news. one problem i can see with the training in the program is that it doesn't follow the tabata method strictly enough.

the guy did 20 seconds, then recovered, and did that 3 times. in proper tabata, he should have done 20 seconds, 10 seconds rest, and done that 8 times, for a total of 4 minutes. as he has seen, the high intensity if the 20 seconds has benefits on insulin or whatever, but it's the lack of proper recovery going into the 4th, 5th, 6th - 8th reps.

The idea is that the anaerobic system fuels the sprints at the start but when it can't restock fuel fast enough for the latter stages, it needs to use the fuel in the aerobic system to keep you going. So it's not just the intensity of the exercise, or necessarily it's duration, it's the lack of a proper rest time in between.

This was the method in the original study. I would like to see what improvements the dr on horizon would have had if he did that a few times a week

...they hardly need to?? It's in the orignal study!!!

supine

Hanley wrote: »

...they hardly need to?? It's in the orignal study!!!

Well the original study involved elite Japanese athletes, so they would obviously be high responders already, plus, it didn't involve the insulin measure that was in horizon.

very confused, is this about high intensity training or high intensity interval training?