10 Minutes of Exercise, Hour Long Effects
Just a quick post about an interesting article I read a few days ago. The article highlights how 10 minutes of high intensity exercise lead to metabolic changes that last an hour. An emerging field called metabolomics performed metabolic profiling of people and hopes to determine what exactly causes health improvements from exercising or eating less saturated fat. Metabolomics even hopes to determine if some people are biologically predisposed to get more benefit as well.
The first part of the study found that just 10 minutes of exercise led to metabolic changes that were still measurable 60 minutes later. Quite obviously these benefits included fat burning and blood-sugar control. More interesting is that the effects were exaggerated in particular groups. Skinnier people received more benefit for blood-sugar control and people who were deemed more fit based on oxygen intake actually burned more fat than those who were less fit.
This is counter to my belief that less fit people would receive more benefit from starting an exercise program. That being said, this study did just focus on differences in metabolites, not necessarily quantify fat loss over the long term. From a biochemical standpoint though, it does provide hope that those of you who are already fit can receive increased fat loss benefits from exercise. Up next for this research group is evaluating the effects of diet on metabolic changes by comparing the Mediterranean diet to a higher fat diet.
Related posts:
- An Effective, Quick Workout For Busy People: Get Lean with 20 Minutes of Intense Exercise
- Diet or Exercise? Which is better for weight loss?
- Fad Diets: Which Is Best For Long-Term Weight Loss
- Escalating Density Training Review: 15 Minutes of Supersets
- G-Flux: Eat More, Exercise More to Increase Your Metabolism?
Posted in Beginners Workouts
Interesting article. That being said – we need to be careful with these studies. In the end, they are mostly performed for the sake of… being performed. Fitness need not be complicated
Y.
Yavor,
Great point about fitness studies. They’re either performed for someone to make a controversial point or for their own self interest (or the interest of a food/supplement company) to make money!
Dave
Dave – i’d say they are performed for companies always (because companies pay for them). That being said, of course there are ethical scientist. But there are also ones that need food on the table and results to satisfy their sponsors…
Here is my spin on this …,When I rev my cardio up a notch e.g 2x 15 minute treadmill interval sprinting per week 20km/hr @ 2% incline … my body feels like it burns calories for most of the day and I know I’m dropping bodyfat as my abs get more pronounced in that period. So yes I think the study is correct
Raymond,
I’d agree that in practice it seems like I burn more fat with high intensity exercising. One question about the study is how much of that increased fat burning is due to individual metabolic profiles. Is everyone unique or does high intensity training really work better for people already in shape? Let’s see where the scientists go with this one.
Dave
Isn’t this the same thing that Tony Horton kind of touches upon in ’10-Minute Trainer’? The idea of super-stacking your workout into a ten-minute period with cardio, abs, lower and upper body to get the most bang for your buck. In theory, it seems correct but if I exercised for only 10 minutes, I wouldn’t feel like I was really exercising, lol.
Toni,
I’m not familiar with Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Trainer. The concept is really just confirmation of the after-burn effect that comes from high intensity exercise. There are benefits on top of benefits from exercising longer. The interesting thing is that you’ll benefit more if you’re skinnier, which bodes well for someone like you!
Dave
Dave,
It’s really just a condensed version of his P90X system. He created it specifically for the stay-at-home mom (like me), working professionals or anyone who can’t really devote the time to an hour-long grueling exercise session six days a week like P90X. The super-stacking concept that he supposedly came up with is really just a fancy way of saying that you can get the afterburn effects of a longer workout if you intensely workout for only 10 minutes just in the proper sequence. I love Tony Horton – the guy doesn’t even remotely look 52!
Toni,
Tony is in great shape and has gained a phenomenal following. His routine basically sounds like high intensity circuit training. Definitely a good way to train for those short on time.
Dave