With summer body goal-led workout regimes well and truly underway, many of us are left thinking that the key to a rock-hard, sculpted body worthy of any Victoria's Secret model is countless hours of exercise. But, much to our relief, a new study has found that a few minutes of hard-core training could very well replace a whole exercise class.
As spotted by Harper's BAZAAR UK new research by Victoria University has found that just two minutes of high-intensity exercise—better known as HIIT—could be just as beneficial to your health as a 30 minute spin class.
Asking participants to take part in three exercise sessions of varying intensities during a set amount of time—leaving at least seven days of rest in between each session—researchers observed their energy output within each activity, as well as their post-workout results to determine which method of exercise was most beneficial.
Looking at biopsy results, it was found that the mitochondria—the energy generators of each cell—in each participants' thigh muscles looked almost identical after both long periods of moderate exercise and short bursts of high-intensity exercise.
Or, as researchers put it: "In conclusion, intermittent exercise performed at high intensities has similar dynamic effects on muscle mitochondrial function compared with endurance exercise, irrespective of whether total workload is matched."
After wrapping up their study, researchers determined that we can absolutely be tweaking our workouts to our own levels of fitness and exercise preferences and still achieve our personal health goals:
"This suggests that exercise may be prescribed according to individual preferences while still generating similar signals known to confer beneficial metabolic adaptations."
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