New discovery suggests maybe you DO have time to exercise....

Today's Post: Thursday, 2-25-2010

Today AP online health news ran a story about a study confirming the work of Dr Al Sears who already has been promoting his PACE program and how effective it is for fat loss.

The bottom line is that properly done interval cardio (& similar strength training) are safe, effective, and can take an astonishingly short time to do at each session.

(See more from that story below. First, I include some information on why it’s so useful and beneficial and ways to make it even safer)

Dr Sears has said for quite a while now that the kind of interval cardio he teaches is far safer, uses much less time and is more effective at improving your health and getting fit than steady state cardio that takes far longer.

He literally has had patients unable to walk more than 45 seconds without stopping progress to very fit and dramatically more intense exercise while losing amazing amounts on the scale and from their initially overfat bellies.

His program, or a similar one, becomes intense by gradually making small improvements continuously even if you start out at a tiny bit of incredibly little exercise.

By doing this, and by progressing a bit on the slow and steady side in the early stages while progress comes easy, your body acclimates to the gradually more intense exercise well enough that studies show it’s quite safe.

The kind of exercise normally that can cause injury or worse is either going far too suddenly to very intense exercise such as someone who is unfit shoveling snow which is far more intense than they perceive it to be or someone who increases the amount or intensity they do by double each week instead of by closer to 5% per week. Yikes!

The other kind is pushing your body past it’s ability to recover by doing the exercise so long that you overdo your body’s current fitness and ability to adapt and not slowing down or resting between spurts of much more vigorous exercise that your body CAN handle.

Properly done interval cardio such as Dr Sears’ PACE program solves all those problems.

You do rest between the more intense exercise sections, particularly at first, and you slow down or rest each time BEFORE you overdo it, or burn out mentally.

You also limit the total amount of time you take each day to both allow for the exercise to be quite vigorous and to avoid overuse injuries.

This quite literally means that you can get effective fat loss and health benefits producing exercise in as little as 5 to 10 minutes a day on three days a week.

One study found that even a single one or two minute session a day works!

Bet you have time to do that! And, there are many ways to do interval cardio at home too.

That means you can actually fit exercise into your life even if you have very little time.

To be sure, a bit over 10 minutes a day 3 days a week of interval cardio and 20 or 30 minutes on the alternate days two or three days a week of strength training is better. But you CAN get an effective start in very little time by using interval cardio alone.

Here’s some info from the AP story today.:

Their title was: “Interval training can cut exercise hours sharply.” AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng wrote it; & it appeared earlier today, 2-25-2010, & was listed as coming from LONDON.

I loved their first line.: “People who complain they have no time to exercise may soon need another excuse.”

As you’ve seen and will see, that is quite literally true.

"High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise," said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.”

That actually understates the case once you build up to higher levels of intensity.

The AP story said that interval training means working very hard for a few minutes with rest periods in between sets.

That’s actually incomplete. You may need two or three minutes between sets at first even if you do only two or three sets. In fact, you want to be conservative at first in resting long enough. But one way to make the exercise progressive is to very gradually rest for shorter periods. You may get to where 30 seconds of rest is enough. You can even use slowing down or dropping the intensity instead of stopping in some kinds of interval cardio after you become fit and have done the exercises for a long enough period of time.

Jon Helgerud also was quoted with some advice for beginners, “…. try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you're an elite athlete, it shouldn't be an all-out effort.” – and, “"You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn't have the obvious feeling of exhaustion,"

Again that understates the case, you can start with TWO sessions and one rest period in between; and once you are fit, it’s OK to be pretty out of breath at the end of each session – but he’s correct that this is NOT a great idea at first.

Here’s a real life example.:

In my own new added interval cardio of doing jumping jacks two days a week and jumping rope two days a week, I was already moderately fit and started with just two sets of 14!

For someone less fit, even 2 or 3 times per set for two sets is an OK place to start.

I now do 3 sets of 21 on the jumping rope and am holding it there until I can do each of the 3 sets of 21 without a miss. I’m getting close! I’ve done 18 or 19 without a miss several times now.

And, I now do 5 sets of 42 jumping jacks. But I have built up to that gradually over many weeks.

I hope to get to where I can do 8 sets of 98 of each where each set is a minute or less and I only need to rest for 20 seconds or so between sets. That’s 794 times in 10 minutes and likely safe to do. But I started with TWO sets of 14 and a about a minute and a half rest in between.

The story noted that: “Helgerud says the time people spend in the gym could be slashed dramatically if they did interval training instead. He said officials have been too afraid of recommending intense training, fearing it might be too much for some people.” – and they quoted him as saying: "I'm much more afraid of people not exercising at all," he said. "Inactivity is what's killing us."

And, the truth makes the case even stronger because starting at very easy and progressing slowly enough and taking a break early enough in each set makes interval cardio SAFER than exercise that takes far longer and is less intense.

This quote from the story is significant.:

“When compared to people on a normal exercise routine, like jogging, research has shown those doing interval training can double their endurance, improve their oxygen use and strength by more than 10 percent, and their speed by at least 5 percent. Even studies in the elderly and in heart patients found they had better oxygen use and fitness after doing interval training.

The reporter also interviewed, Adamson Nicholls, a 36-year-old martial arts practitioner from London, who said that by using interval training, he got into top shape last year in about six weeks, using weekly 45-minute sessions and that his experience suggests the same level would have taken about three months via regular training. He also found that, just as other fitness experts said would be the case, he got much faster and stronger and more explosive in his ability to throw punches.

The story also quoted Stephen Bailey, a sports sciences expert from the University of Exeter. He said that the intense bursts of exercise in interval cardio help your body build more fast twitch muscle fiber and to cause your body to use oxygen more efficiently and become capable of exercising a lot longer.

In addition, with both progressive strength training and well done interval cardio, the after effects – including the extra calories burned by your body -- lasts for hours. That’s so even for a few minute session of interval cardio.

"You've exercised at such a high intensity that you're going to create a massive disturbance in your muscles," Bailey said. That creates a higher metabolism for several hours afterward, which the body will bring down by burning fat and carbohydrates.

"This is definitely the way forward to save time on your exercise," Nicholls said. And he added: "The results are worth it."

More effective at increasing fitness and strength and speed and fat loss while taking less far less time and even being safer if you do it right -- with interval cardio, there’s a LOT to like.

By the way, Dr Sears not only sells his PACE system on his website, he now has a video to make it really easy for someone new to interval cardio to see how to do it.

See, www.alsearsmd.com .

You can do it yourself if you have some background in exercise as I do and have done. But if you need someone to show you how, Dr Sears’ information is a decent place to start.