Stranger Than Fiction: Fitness In Nine Minutes a Week

The New York Times Well column asks the ridiculous question: Can one get fit in nine minutes a week? Then answers with a resounding “possibly.”  What’s up with that? The paper cites research conducted at McMaster University in Ontario, where one group of college students rode a stationary bike at a sustainable pace
for between 90 and 120 minutes. Another set of students went through
a series of short, strenuous intervals: 20 to 30 seconds of cycling at
the highest intensity the riders could stand. After resting for four
minutes, the students pedaled hard again for another 20 to 30 seconds,
repeating the cycle four to six times (depending on how much each
person could stand). Both groups exercised three times a week. After two weeks, the Times reports,
both groups showed almost identical increases in their endurance (as
measured in a stationary bicycle time trial), even though the one group had exercised for six to nine minutes per week, and the other about five hours.Wait, there’s more: molecular changes that signal increased fitness were evident equally in both groups.
Read more in the New York Times.