Forget about spending hours working out at the gym, 12 minutes of exercise a week are all you need to stay fit, according to a new study.
Four-minute bursts of high-intensity exercise three times a week are enough to boost people’s physical fitness, according to a team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim whose research was published in the Public Library of Science ONE journal.
The researchers studied the effects of short exercise regimes on 24 overweight but healthy men, The Telegraph reports.
For 10 weeks, the men exercised “vigorously” three times a week, by running on a treadmill fast enough to raise their heart rate to 90 percent of its maximum capacity. The regime consisted of four-minute sessions, or in the case of half of the subjects, 16-minute sessions divided into four-minute segments. The results for both groups were similar.
The men who participated in the study increased the amount of oxygen the body can use during exercise — a measure of fitness — by 10 to 13 percent and saw slight decreases in their blood pressure and glucose levels.
The sixteen-minute sessions were also more effective at lowering cholesterol and body fat.
Health guidelines typically recommend people undertake at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise per week in order to stay healthy.
But the researchers argue their study indicates that the risk of death from conditions like heart disease and stroke could be reduced by spending even less time in the gym.
“These data suggest that it may be possible to reduce cardiovascular mortality with substantially less exercise than is generally recommended, provided it is performed in a vigorous manner,” they wrote.
In fact, the researchers noted the brief bursts of vigorous exercise could be done as part of people’s daily routines, like by walking quickly up six to 10 flights of stairs or a hill with an 8 to 10 percent incline.
The study could also help people who are struggling to find enough free time to exercise.
“Since we know that more and more people are inactive and overweight, the kind of improvement in physical fitness that we saw in this study may provide a real boost for inactive people who are struggling to find the motivation to exercise,” he said.
Some doctors have raised concerns abut bursts of intense exercise, particularly by older patients, but the researchers claim, “most individuals can engage in this type of exercise training.”