The Effects of Time and Intensity of Exercise on Novel and Established Markers of CVD in Adolescent Youth
Friday, April 8, 2011 at 4:04PMI have a couple of kids that play too many games on the computer or Wii. I often have a hard enough time fitting in exercise for myself let alone getting the kids organized. So, I saw a recent study in the Journal of Human Biology on the effects of time and intensity of exercise on markers of CVD in youth. [i]
The study looked at a group of boys and girls of about 16 years of age. The researchers had the kids exercise 3 days a week. The modest intensity group (MOD) did 20 minutes of continuous running. The high intensity group (HIT) ran 4 to 6 repeats of maximal sprint running within a 20 meter area with 20-30 seconds of recovery between the sprints (high intensity training group).
The modest intensity group committed 420 minutes of exercise during the course of the intervention. The high intensity training group committed 63 minutes. The researchers demonstrated the following:
- Total estimated energy expenditure was 907.2 kcal (HIT) and 4410 kcal (MOD).
- In the high intensity training group significant improvements were found in systolic blood pressure, aerobic fitness, and body mass index (BMI) postintervention
- In the modest intensity training group, significant improvements were noted in aerobic fitness, percentage body fat (%BF), BMI, fibrinogen (Fg), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, and insulin concentrations.
The authors concluded that brief, intense exercise is a time efficient means for improving cardiovascular risk factors in adolescents.
[i] Am. J. Hum. Biol. 00:000–000, 2011
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