Exercise has many benefits to the body aside from losing weight. It keeps the body healthier by preventing diseases and strengthening the immune system.
Over the years, many forms of exercise had become popular and the recent one is the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts that d not require much time and equipment as regular workouts.
Studies have shown that HIIT could improve fitness, lower blood pressure, and manage blood sugar levels. It also aids in weight loss and prevents diseases, like type 2 diabetes.
But a recent showed that a form of HIIT is even better than aerobic exercise for a person's heart health because it benefits cardiometabolic health, and can also be done in just a few minutes.
What Are HIIT Workouts?
The essence of HIIT workouts is "hard work, short rests," and it is composed of five main variables that can change the nature of a person's exercise routine.
According to Coach Mag, the first two of these variables are work and rest durations. That means, the person should have longer exercise periods and shorter rest periods. Longer workouts improve endurance better and shorter ones for power.
The next one is intensity. It is important to maintain a consistent level of effort across the work periods and not just go all-outs without being able to sustain it.
The fourth variable is the type of rest. It could be pedaling slowly on an exercise bike, engaging in active-active recovery, or stopping completely.
Lastly, there is the total volume of the exercise. It can start as low volume then go as hard as possible.
Low-Volume HIIT Offers Greater Health Improvements
A recent review, entitled "Low‐volume high‐intensity interval training for cardiometabolic health" published n The Journal of Physiology, suggests that a new form of HIIT called low-volume HIIT has benefits on cardiometabolic health.
It is similar to HIIT but with greater improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness and even better than aerobic exercises. The low-volume HIIT could help manage blood sugar, improve cardiorespiratory fitness, lowers blood pressure, and improve cardiac function, ScienceAlert reported.
Researchers looked at 11 studies and defined low-volume HIIT as an exercise that could be done in active intervals in less than 15 minutes.
They found that low-volume HIIT improved the ability of a person to burn fat that directly controls blood sugar, an important factor in preventing the person to have type 2 diabetes.
Moreover, their review also showed that low-volume HIIT could improve the heart's structure that increases the volume of blood that can pump, therefore decreasing blood pressure.
This review showed that low-volume HIIT, an exercise that can be done in a few minutes, can improve cardiorespiratory fitness even moderately to prevent adverse cardiovascular events, like heart attacks.
With the current recommended time of exercise for adults by WHO, people are citing lack or shortage of time to not exercise. But low-volume HIIT shows the potential to be more time-efficient but offers similar or greater health improvements compared to long workouts.
RELATED ARTICLE : 3 Reasons Why It's Time to Change The Same Daily Workout Routine
Check out more news and information on Exercise on Science Times.
