High impact can mean high rewards

Can fat really be gone in 60 seconds? Not quite, but not too far off.

Researchers have found that a few minutes of high intensive interval training (HIIT) a few times per week delivers the same long-term results as spending 20-30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill.

In the short term, the study revealed that the HIIT showed immediate increases in certain proteins associated with improvements in endurance capacity. But when researchers studied the effects in a longer timeframe, the difference between going all-out in short spurts in a short time wasn’t dissimilar to those of a longer, less strenuous workout.

“It would appear that there is something important, even essential, about the pulsative nature” of on-off HIIT training, Martin Gibala, chairman of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University, told the New York Times.

So maybe you don’t have to spend 2-3 hours at the gym each week in order to stay fit. A few sessions per week of 45-second high impact intervals with a minute break in between may be all you need. Of course, that’s if your body — and mind — can handle it.