Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 31, 2026
Short Session High Intensity Interval Training and Treadmill Assessment in Aged Mice
Published on: February 2, 2019
High Intensity Interval- vs Moderate Intensity- Training for Improving Cardiometabolic Health in Overweight or Obese
Gordon Fisher1, Andrew W Brown2, Michelle M Bohan Brown3
1Department of Human Studies, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America; Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America; Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, United States of America.
Purpose:
To compare the effects of six weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) vs continuous moderate intensity training (MIT) for improving body composition, insulin sensitivity (SI), blood pressure, blood lipids, and cardiovascular fitness in a cohort of sedentary overweight or obese young men. We hypothesized that HIIT would result in similar improvements in body composition, cardiovascular fitness, blood lipids, and SI as compared to the MIT group, despite requiring only one hour of activity per week compared to five hours per week for the MIT group.
Methods:
28 sedentary overweight or obese men (age, 20 ± 1.5 years, body mass index 29.5 ± 3.3 kg/m2) participated in a six week exercise treatment. Participants were randomly assigned to HIIT or MIT and evaluated at baseline and post-training. DXA was used to assess body composition, graded treadmill exercise test to measure cardiovascular fitness, oral glucose tolerance to measure SI, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to assess lipoprotein particles, and automatic auscultation to measure blood pressure.
Results:
A greater improvement in VO2peak was observed in MIT compared to HIIT (11.1% vs 2.83%, P = 0.0185) in the complete-case analysis. No differences were seen in the intention to treat analysis, and no other group differences were observed. Both exercise conditions were associated with temporal improvements in % body fat, total cholesterol, medium VLDL, medium HDL, triglycerides, SI, and VO2peak (P < 0.05).
Conclusion:
Participation in HIIT or MIT exercise training displayed: 1) improved SI, 2) reduced blood lipids, 3) decreased % body fat, and 4) improved cardiovascular fitness. While both exercise groups led to similar improvements for most cardiometabolic risk factors assessed, MIT led to a greater improvement in overall cardiovascular fitness. Overall, these observations suggest that a relatively short duration of either HIIT or MIT training may improve cardiometabolic risk factors in previously sedentary overweight or obese young men, with no clear advantage between these two specific regimes (Clinical Trial Registry number NCT01935323).
Trial Registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01935323.
More Related Videos
08:27A Real-World High-Intensity Interval Training Protocol for Cardiorespiratory Fitness Improvement
Published on: February 22, 2022
06:28A Chronic High-Intensity Interval Training and Diet-Induced Obesity Model to Maximize Exercise Effort and Induce Physiologic Changes in Rats
Published on: April 28, 2023
Related Concept Videos
01:20Exercise and Cardiovascular Response
Light to moderate physical activity initiates a series of interconnected responses in the body. The heart rate modestly increases in anticipation of the workout, followed by widespread vasodilation as oxygen consumption by skeletal muscles increases. This results in decreased peripheral resistance, increased capillary blood flow, and accelerated...
01:17Exercise and Cardiac Output
Sustained exercise increases the muscles' oxygen demand, which can be...
01:27Exercise and Muscle Performance
Endurance exercises
Endurance exercises involve running, swimming, or cycling, which require repetitive movements with low force output. When a person engages in endurance exercise, a few noticeable changes occur in their skeletal muscles. For instance, the number of capillaries...