So I just read a little article in Prevention magazine this week. It said that doing a few 30 second “sprints” with rest in between for a few days a week was as beneficial to your heart as multiple 30 minute cardio workouts. Being an inherent exercise-slacker, I, of course, was totally intrigued. So I checked online to see if I could verify this study, and sure enough – there it is, it’s all over the web. And there have apparently been quite a few studies!

A good summary is in this About.com article. They say that “recent studies of sprint training with cyclists showed greater cardiovascular results in less time. In fact, one study found that just six sessions of four to seven all-out thirty-second sprints (with four minutes of recovery between sprints) could be as effective at improving cardiovascular fitness as an hour of daily moderate-level aerobic exercise.”

Another website WeBeFit.com quotes a different study – they said a researcher at McMaster University in Canada wanted to find out just how little exercise was needed to see a benefit (I like his style!). So they split their study into 2 groups – one group did the sprint exercises, and the other did the more traditional 40-60 minutes of moderate cycling for 5 days a week. The other group did 4-6 all-out sprints with 4.5 minutes of rest in between for 3 days a week. The study showed that the arteries of both groups had improved equally! And when they calculated the time difference it was astonishing – the traditional workout group spent 1,500 minutes excercising over the 6 week test period, while the test group exercised a total of only 45 minutes (not including the rest time)!!

Sounds good, eh? These articles also give some guidelines to setting up a workout – especially the About.com summary. So I have been trying my own little version on the exercise bike (yes – somewhat motivated by the same reason as the lady in the cartoon). It is actually pretty interesting. You really do have to go all out for the 30 seconds as it says in the article. I’m not talking just fast – I’m talking you want to collapse after those 30 seconds. But then you get to just relax and bike slowly for a couple of minutes before you have to do it again. Really – it seems to me that it is quite similar to some of the pre-programmed sessions on the exercise bikes at the gym. But it is nice to be able to sleep in an extra 15-20 minutes! So here’s to a new phase – until I tire of this one too and look for something else