So you don't have time to exercise?

We all lead busy lives - too busy for most of us! And so the health choices we make are often not the best because there just isn't enough hours in the day.

And, for at least 80% of us this means that we don't get anywhere near enough exercise, mainly because, well, it just takes too long to fit it in to our schedule.

Well here is the good news. All the latest research is showing that it is the QUALITY and not the QUANTITY of exercise that is important. What do we mean by this?

How intensely you work out is far more important than how long you exercise for. This is where High Intensity Interval Training (HITT) comes into play.

HITT involves very short bursts of all-out exercise where you are running/cycling etc as hard as you can with longer periods in between of slower exercise to allow your heart rate to settle back closer to normal again before you start the next short burst of intense activity.

One recent study compared a group of males exercising moderately on a stationary bike for 45 minutes versus a different group exercising for only 10 minutes on a bike with a 3 minute warm up, and then 20 second burst of cycling as hard as they could followed by 2 minutes of gentle pedaling - repeating this interval 3 times. That actually equates to only 1 minute of intense exercise.

Each group did 3 sessions per week for 12 weeks and at the end of the study both groups had EQUAL gains in all the measured physiological changes. This seems totally unbelievable as one group rode for a total of 27 hours versus the HIIT group doing 6 hours with only 36 minutes of intense cycling.

This is not to discredit strength and longer endurance training as both are very important to our health and well-being. However, if time truly is your limiting factor when it comes to exercise, then simply start with some High Intensity interval Training and you will be shocked at how easy it is to fit some exercise into your daily and weekly schedules!

Where can you start? Try doing 20-60 second bursts of running or cycling or elliptical followed by 2-3 minute periods of slow activity until your heart rate calms down and then repeat. Do 3 sets of this and then you are done. Try to build up to periods of 5 minute bursts when you really start to build up your fitness capacity.

Share with us below if you have ever tried HIIT before in your exercise regiment. And, if you are worried your body can't handle this form of intense exercise then get checked by your Chiropractor first to get the all clear.