New research has made the headlines this week saying that as little as 3 minutes of exercise a week can deliver many of the health and fitness benefits of hours of conventional exercise. Here, we’ve teamed up with the scientists at Myvitamins.com to explain the concept behind it.

Backed by research published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, it works on the principle that 3 minutes of exercise where you work at a high intensity (80% of your maximum heart rate) for 30 seconds followed by 30 seconds of slow intensity exercise (working at 50% of your maximum heart rate) is proven to improve insulin sensitivity by up to 24% as well as your aerobic cardiovascular fitness.

Insulin Sensitivity

Firstly insulin sensitivity is related to how well the body removes sugar from the blood and is therefore closely linked to fat storage and fat loss. Put more simply (and without going into too much science) an improved insulin sensitivity of up to 24% is therefore associated with a greater ability to lose fat and a better ability to prevent fat storage. According to scientists one possible explanation as to how this works is related to how many more muscle cells the body has to recruit. See when we go for a light jog, walk or bike ride we probably only recruit 20-40% of our muscle cells. However when we increase the tempo we force our upper body and core muscles to engage as well, meaning around 80% of the body’s muscles cells are activated. This then means we use more muscle glycogen (carbohydrates that are stored in the muscles) which in turn creates more room for glucose to be sucked out of the blood and stored more efficiently, rather than being stored as fat.

Aerobic Fitness

Secondly whilst hours of road running or gruelling spin classes are usually associated with improving the fitness of your heart and lungs, scientists again have shown that the 3 minutes of interval training described above can in fact improve your fitness aerobic cardiovascular in much less time, however they are also quick to point out it’s highly dependent upon your genes and genetic makeup. Researchers say it boils down to the fact people respond to exercise in very different ways. One study conducted at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre at Louisiana University took 1,000 people and put them on an exercise routine where they trained for 4 hours a week for 20 weeks. Their aerobic fitness was measured before and after starting this regime, the results were very different. Although 15% of the subjects made impressive improvements in fitness (these were deemed ‘super-responders’) another 20% showed no real improvement at all (deemed ‘non-responders’). There was no suggestion that the non-responders weren't exercising properly, it was simply that the exercise they were doing was not making them any aerobically fitter.

Final Thought

Whilst there are tests that can be done to see whether you will be a ‘super-responder’ or a ‘non-responder’ the best way is to trial it yourself and see and also to find the right exercise that works for you. Furthermore whilst research shows that getting up and doing some exercise still remains the best way to improve cardiovascular fitness, insulin sensitivity can actually be improved by supplementing the diet with the trace mineral known as chromium. It’s believed it does this by increasing the number and sensitivity of insulin receptors on cell membranes which basically means you need less insulin to have the desired effect. So whether your insulin sensitivity is improved by the 3 minutes of exercise mentioned above or not, the good news is you can still improve it by other means. 30 tablets of total chromium is available from Myvitamins.com for £2.49 http://www.myvitamins.com/vitamins/total-chromium/10618910.html