Senior News Line: Sometimes less is better

Researchers studying how the body responds to exercise had some very surprising results recently.

While the study document was packed with medical terms and graphs, the end result was clear. In this case, when it came to one particular exercise, it turned out that less was better than more.

One group of participants completed six 30-second exercises called sprint interval training, working at maximum intense effort on an exercise bike. They rested for four minutes between each exercise.

The other group of participants had a fairly leisurely experience on an exercise bike, pedaling at moderate speed for 90 minutes.

Blood samples were taken just before any exercise was started, when the exercise was finished and three hours later.

The results: 25% of the proteins in the blood were changed by the sprinter exercises, while the leisurely cyclers barely saw a change of 0.25% of those proteins.

Those proteins are important and affect type 2 diabetes, obesity, blood vessel growth, metabolic disorders and more.

While the results of this research just came out, the idea is apparently not new. Ten years ago the National Institutes of health published a document extolling the benefits of sprint interval training as a way to get sedentary individuals to exercise.

They looked at several studies, each with different numbers of sprints of varying lengths. They concluded that less is more — fewer sprints of shorter time — to improve health markers.

Before you try this on your own, ask your doctor what he or she thinks about high intensity exercise for you. Don’t settle for, “Yes, that’s fine. Any exercise is good.”

Insist on specific instruction. Ask: How many sprints; how long for each one?

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