Birth of a New Exercise Fad?

[Pedaling Fool]

I remember first hearing about the "truth" of exercise a few years ago, by Michael Mosley, about how 3-minutes of intense exercise is just as good (or better) than more traditional types of exercise http://www.pbs.org/program/michael-mosley/

I continued seeing reports on it periodically, and as of now there seems to be a lot of articles on it, such as this http://www.charlotteobserver.com/liv...e75009182.html and they are citing PLOS ONE studies, such as here: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0154075

I'm calling BS, this seems to be just another myth in the making. I can see the infomercials now

If it sounds too good....

[Sarcasm the elf]

I might be mixing this up with a different recent fad, but Didn't I read a while ago that this claim only applied to people who's bodies were in a "high responder" category and that most people were not expected see major results?

[Pedaling Fool]

The thing about High/Low responders were dealing with more traditional aerobic conditioning exercises. The above is all about using anaerobic method exclusively; I don't know of this method addressing the High/Low responder issue. http://www.athleticsweekly.com/0/adm...-in-the-genes/

[Old Grouse]

If I hke really, really hard for half a mile, can I book that as a 20 mile day?

[Bronk]

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Every diet and exercise commercial shows before pictures with people obviously sticking their stomach out and after pictures with them obviously sucking it in. And they want you to believe that the diet or machine they are selling will give you six pack abs when the reality is that whether or not you can see your abs is more a function of how much fat you have on your stomach than how much exercise your ab muscles get. You're better off taking a long walk than you are doing situps.

This stuff is all pretty obvious but people are taken in by these fads and gimmicks over and over. If you want to lose weight you can eat less or exercise more. That's as simple of an equation as you're going to find.

[Sarcasm the elf]

If I hke really, really hard for half a mile, can I book that as a 20 mile day?

Isn't that is a time honored tradition among a small percentage of thru hikers?

[Sarcasm the elf]

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Every diet and exercise commercial shows before pictures with people obviously sticking their stomach out and after pictures with them obviously sucking it in. And they want you to believe that the diet or machine they are selling will give you six pack abs when the reality is that whether or not you can see your abs is more a function of how much fat you have on your stomach than how much exercise your ab muscles get. You're better off taking a long walk than you are doing situps.

This stuff is all pretty obvious but people are taken in by these fads and gimmicks over and over. If you want to lose weight you can eat less or exercise more. That's as simple of an equation as you're going to find.

http://www.cracked.com/personal-expe...-products.html

[rocketsocks]

Isn't that is a time honored tradition among a small percentage of thru hikers?

...and cyber hikers, I've already done 15 miles this mornin' prolly do the same this afternoon which'll give me about 45 for the day...give or take a couple miles.

[illabelle]

If you want to lose weight you can eat less or exercise more. That's as simple of an equation as you're going to find.

I'm beginning to believe that the real reason why weight loss is difficult is because of how we measure the components of that equation. We measure food intake in calories, but we measure body mass in pounds. Common sense says if I consume 4 pounds of donuts or chips or cheesecake, I gain 4 pounds. If I consume 4 pounds of spinach or water or pinto beans, I gain 4 pounds. 4 pounds is 4 pounds. But somehow through a distortion of all that common sense, I'm still too fat.

[Dogwood]

PBS has long been offering "information" in the form of what's likened to an infomercial. Off the top of my head, I've watched Dr. Furhman, Dr. Hyman, Dr. Amen, Dr. Weil, Dr. Depak Chopra, Dr Dyer, Dr. Permutter, and a few others I'm not immediately recalling. IMO, lots of alternative minded people offering some unconventional approaches sure to rub some people the wrong way.

The only thing I know of, and agree with, that Mosley suggests can help people in a variety of ways under various scenarios is intermittent fasting.

[burger]

Some of the negative comments on this thread are pretty ignorant. There are multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers showing the benefits of high-impact aerobic training. If you don't want to go that route, fine, but it seems to have a lot of benefits, at least for sedentary people trying to get into shape. Check out this article, which has links to some relevant scientific papers: http://www.nytimes.com/well/guides/r...short-workouts

Personally, I hike+run over 40 miles a week, so I doubt that I would be able to maintain my fitness level if I switched to one minute a day. I don't think that a few minutes of intervals a day will get you ready for your thru-hike either. But for the average out-of-shape American, it seems like a little bit of high-impact training can make a big difference.

As for those of you who think this is BS, unless you have some better scientific evidence to refute the published studies, you're not just makin' stuff up.

[burger]

As for those of you who think this is BS, unless you have some better scientific evidence to refute the published studies, you're not just makin' stuff up.

Oops, meant you are just makin' stuff up.

[perrito]

There is nothing like backpacking to burn those calories.
http://www.backpacker.com/skills/fit...ing/#bp=0/img1

[Pedaling Fool]

I'm beginning to believe that the real reason why weight loss is difficult is because of how we measure the components of that equation. We measure food intake in calories, but we measure body mass in pounds. Common sense says if I consume 4 pounds of donuts or chips or cheesecake, I gain 4 pounds. If I consume 4 pounds of spinach or water or pinto beans, I gain 4 pounds. 4 pounds is 4 pounds. But somehow through a distortion of all that common sense, I'm still too fat.

I've learned that I can't confuse exercise with weight loss; I can't exercise myself enough to get rid of excess fat. We're all different and I'm sure there are some that can exercise to lose weight -- we all have that friend that can eat and eat and not gain an ounce, but I believe most of us are not this type of person.

If I want to lose weight I must control my intake, period. I don't need to exercise one bit to lose weight. I exercise to build/maintain a strong, healthy body, period. I know there is some overlap, but that has to be my mindset on diet and exercise.

For me, a 2,000 calorie per day diet is too much, I will gain weight, especially as I age. I basically do a lot of mini-fasting. Your hunger pagns that you feel is not necessarily because you need food, it's just your body being childish. No kidding, it's been spoiled by all the food dumped into it since you were a little kid. We seem to think that hunger pangs is your body telling you that you need food.

[peakbagger]

The Mosley series was pretty good and that particular episode was the best of the set. Nice to see independent confirmation.

I rank that Moseleyseries a lot higher than some of the weekend infomercial the local PBS station peddles.

[Pedaling Fool]

Some of the negative comments on this thread are pretty ignorant. There are multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers showing the benefits of high-impact aerobic training. If you don't want to go that route, fine, but it seems to have a lot of benefits, at least for sedentary people trying to get into shape. Check out this article, which has links to some relevant scientific papers: http://www.nytimes.com/well/guides/r...short-workouts

Personally, I hike+run over 40 miles a week, so I doubt that I would be able to maintain my fitness level if I switched to one minute a day. I don't think that a few minutes of intervals a day will get you ready for your thru-hike either. But for the average out-of-shape American, it seems like a little bit of high-impact training can make a big difference.


As for those of you who think this is BS, unless you have some better scientific evidence to refute the published studies, you're not just makin' stuff up.

Who came up with this term high-impact aerobic ?

If you go by the definitions of high/low impact aerobic activity, than biking is high impact, but a stationary bike is low impact aerobic ... http://www.wellness-helper.com/aerobic-exercise.html


Call it what you want, but I'll stick to the better defined term of anaerobic exercise. The stuff in the OP is NOT aerobic, it's going all out into the red zone, i.e. anaerobic.

I'll be interested to see the long term effects of people that practice this form of exercise, thinking that all they need to do is jump on a bike, go all out for 3 minutes and be done. If it were only that easy...

[MuddyWaters]

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) has its place.

Typically you work incrementally up to peak exertion in stages, then maintain for about a minute, then slow down and recover while still working at low intensity . doing this you hit about 5 peaks in a 20 min workout.

You are still working out overall for at leadt 20 min though.

Its good for stimulating metabolism to burn fat while not causing body to excrete nitrogen the way that prolonged excercise does.

When you smell ammonia in your sweat, which you will with prolonged excercise, your body is excreting nitrogen, in form of urea.

No big deal, except that the nitrogen comes from breakdown of muscle protein. Its desireable to limit this if trying to build muscle and lose fat and look good. Here, HIIT is the ticket. You want to keep workout short.

Ever see runners that are skinny but flabby? Yep. Running causes you to lose muscle, as well as fat. So does hiking btw, as thruhikers well know.

You do get some decent cardio benefit too. Its not the same as prolonged cardio excercise though. It wont make you an endurance athlete.

[burger]

Who came up with this term high-impact aerobic ?

If you go by the definitions of high/low impact aerobic activity, than biking is high impact, but a stationary bike is low impact aerobic ... http://www.wellness-helper.com/aerobic-exercise.html


Call it what you want, but I'll stick to the better defined term of anaerobic exercise. The stuff in the OP is NOT aerobic, it's going all out into the red zone, i.e. anaerobic.

I'll be interested to see the long term effects of people that practice this form of exercise, thinking that all they need to do is jump on a bike, go all out for 3 minutes and be done. If it were only that easy...

Oops, my bad. I meant high-intensity interval training--same thing mentioned in the OP.

As for long-term effects, I couldn't find anything that I would call "long" term. One study showed major improvements in a bunch of health measures for people who started out obese after 9 months of high intensity training. Doing studies of this sort over years and years is tough because of the expense, difficulty of getting years of funding, and the tendency of people to drop out or move over time. I suspect studies long-term studies will come along, but don't expect any soon.

http://journals.lww.com/ajpmr/Abstra...timized.4.aspx

[burger]

As for losing weight, there was a very interesting article today talking about what happens to contestants on the Biggest Loser after the show ends. Short version: their metabolism slows to a crawl, and they gain back most of the weight. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/he...ight-loss.html

[egilbe]

You guys don't monitor your caloric intake? I have a Fitbit. It's pretty close regarding what I burn for calories. I usually go for a six or seven mile walk before work, track what I eat using the app, keep myself to about a 1k calorie deficit and hike on the weekends and have lost 10 pounds since Valentine's Day. The key is logging what I eat. You have to know how much you are consuming, before you can know how much exercise you need to do. It's pretty easy to burn 5k or 6k calories on a 10 hour hike.