10 Minute Exercises Done 3 Times a Week to Reduce Heart Disease
Research shows that doing as little as 3 half-hour sprint exercise sessions per week had the same beneficial effect on cardiovascular health as 5 hour-long exercises. Each sprint session consisted of sprinting for 30 seconds up to 6 times. This was interspersed with a 4.5 minute rest interval. The outcome of this study may help address the time concerns of busy individuals who need a short exercise routine to help them become healthier. The biggest problem with most people when it comes to exercise, is a lack of time.
No Time for Exercise
A lot of people claim that they would exercise more if they had more time. I think it’s just a misappropriation of priorities. Time and time again, I have seen busy people who could never find time for exercise, suddenly put it as a top priority after a mild heart attack. Some people need a wake-up call. Some times, the wake up call comes too late.
Lack of Exercise Related to Cardiovascular Diseases
Major cardiovascular diseases include coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and peripheral vascular disease. The American Heart Association states that exercise reduces risk of cardiovascular disease. Relative risk of coronary heart disease associated with physical inactivity ranges from 1.5 to 2.4. The increased risk is comparable with that observed for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and cigarette smoking.
Endurance and Interval Training
Endurance training are exercises such as jogging, cycling, swimming or the like, that you do at a steady pace for a prolonged period. The exercise duration could be up to 1 hour. These are the type of exercises that most people are accustomed to doing.
Interval training or sprinting is a kind of exercise where one performs a cardiovascular exercise at the highest intensity possible. Most of the steady state cardiovascular exercises such as running and cycling could be done via this regime. It consists of a sprint interval where you would exert the hardest you possibly can. This is followed by a rest interval where you would reduce your intensity to catch your breath and get prepared for the next sprint.
Endurance and Interval Training Improve Cardiovascular Health
As we age, our arteries become stiffer and less elastic. The arteries lose their ability to dilate. This results in higher blood pressures and cardiovascular diseases. According to the study conducted in McMasters University and published in the American Journal of Physiology, both endurance and sprint training improved markers of cardiovascular health. This included reducing arterial stiffness and improving the ability for arteries to dilate. The impact was significant. The exercise regimes were broken down as follows;
Endurance Training – 40 to 60 minute cycling at 65% of maximum intensity. Done 5 times a week
Interval Training – 30 second sprint followed by 4.5 minute rest. Each exercise consists of 6 cycles. Done 3 times a week
Initial studies in patients with Coronary Artery Disease and chronic heart failure have shown the effectiveness of a high intensity training regime may be greater compared with traditional endurance training regimes. High intensity aerobic interval training is now being recommended for several disease populations.
Interval Training as a Time Effective Health Solution
The interval training regime in the study above takes approximately 30 minutes. Each of the 6 cycles consist of a 30 second sprint and a 4.5 minute rest cycle. Total time taken is 5 minutes per cycle. The beauty of the interval training is that the rest cycle could be reduced as your fitness increases. The rest cycle could be reduced to 1 minute. As a result, the same exercise could be reduced to 9 minutes done 3 times a week. Compare this to doing 5 exercise sessions of 40 minutes each of endurance training to get the same cardiovascular health benefit.
People looking for a short and intense exercise can ultimately get maximum health benefit by doing sprints with 1 minute rest intervals. In a matter of 10 minutes, one would have derived all the positive benefits of exercise on cardiovascular health.
Tags: American Heart Association, cardiovascular health, coronary heart disease, cycling, endurance training, high intensity interval training, interval training, jogging, sprints, swimming
Yeah, absolutely. Sprinting for exercise and walking during the week is not only less time intensive, but gets the best results.
What do you mean when you say “rest interval”(I am asking a serious question here.
Do you mean rest as in: sit down?…Lay down?…slow jog?….walk?…
I really want to clarify this as I really need to start exercising.
Thank you for your comment Robert. In the rest interval, you reduce your pace tremendously but never really stopping your exercise. If you were doing sprints, then the rest phase is where you could probably be walking or doing a slow jog. Hope this answers your question.