Three minutes of all-out intermittent exercise per week increases skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and improves cardiometabolic health

• Published in: PloS one 2014-11, Vol.9 (11), p.e111489-e111489
• Main Authors: Gillen, Jenna B, Percival, Michael E, Skelly, Lauren E, Martin, Brian J, Tan, Rachel B, Tarnopolsky, Mark A, Gibala, Martin J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acyl-CoA dehydrogenase; Adaptation; Adaptation, Physiological; Adaptations; Adult; Adults; Biology and Life Sciences; Biopsy; Blood Glucose; Blood levels; Blood pressure; Body mass; Body mass index; Body size; Body weight; Citrate synthase; Cytochrome; Diabetes; Diet; Energy Metabolism; Enzymes; Exercise; Female; Fitness training programs; Gender differences; Glucose; Glucose monitoring; Health care; Health Status Indicators; Humans; Intervention; Kinesiology; Male; Males; Medicine and Health Sciences; Men; Mens health; Metabolism; Mitochondria - metabolism; Muscle, Skeletal - metabolism; Muscles; Musculoskeletal system; Myocardium - metabolism; Obesity - blood; Obesity - metabolism; Overweight; Overweight - blood; Overweight - metabolism; Oxidases; Oxygen; Oxygen Consumption; Oxygen uptake; Physical fitness; Physiology; Proteins; Public health; Skeletal muscle; Studies; Systematic review; Time Factors; Training; Warm up; Women; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111489

We investigated whether a training protocol that involved 3 min of intense intermittent exercise per week--within a total training time commitment of 30 min including warm up and cool down--could increase skeletal muscle oxidative capacity and markers of health status. Overweight/obese but otherwise healthy men and women (n = 7 each; age = 29±9 y; BMI = 29.8±2.7 kg/m2) performed 18 training sessions over 6 wk on a cycle ergometer. Each session began with a 2 min warm-up at 50 W, followed by 3×20 s "all-out" sprints against 5.0% body mass (mean power output: ∼450-500 W) interspersed with 2 min of recovery at 50 W, followed by a 3 min cool-down at 50 W. Peak oxygen uptake increased by 12% after training (32.6±4.5 vs. 29.1±4.2 ml/kg/min) and resting mean arterial pressure decreased by 7% (78±10 vs. 83±10 mmHg), with no difference between groups (both p