I love high intensity workouts!!

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High-Intensity Interval Training Is Time-Efficient and Effective, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010) — The usual excuse of “lack of time” for not doing enough exercise is blown away by new research published in The Journal of Physiology.

The study, from scientists at Canada’s McMaster University, adds to the growing evidence for the benefits of short term high-intensity interval training (HIT) as a time-efficient but safe alternative to traditional types of moderate long term exercise. Astonishingly, it is possible to get more by doing less!

“We have shown that interval training does not have to be ‘all out’ in order to be effective,” says Professor Martin Gibala. “Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously.”

HIT means doing a number of short bursts of intense exercise with short recovery breaks in between. The authors have already shown with young healthy college students that this produces the same physical benefits as conventional long duration endurance training despite taking much less time (and amazingly, actually doing less exercise!) However, their previous work used a relatively extreme set-up that involved “all out” pedaling on a specialized laboratory bicycle. The new study used a standard stationary bicycle and a workload which was still above most people’s comfort zone -about 95% of maximal heart rate — but only about half of what can be achieved when people sprint at an all-out pace. read the rest here

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” – Michaelangelo

Great quotes to set you up for this weekend!

“If a man does only what is required of him, he is a slave.  If a man does more than is required of him, he is a free man.” – Chinese Proverb