Study: High Intensity Exercise = Good For Kids

Fun Fast Activity Blasts. This is the term being used to describe a regimen for kids that utilizes high intensity exercise to keep kids healthy through the week without taking too much time away from their video games. FFAB, according to a new study, has a host of benefits discovered from studying the effects of intense fitness on 101 students over the course of 13 weeks.

The researchers had one group of students just continue with their usual routine while the other group did only three weekly sessions of 30 minutes each: They warmed up for five minutes, did four 45-second high-intensity activities (with 90 seconds of rest in between) and then they cooled down for another five minutes.

That’s all, just three times a week, with the activities themselves being centered around actual activities kids like, such as basketball and dance. And what were the results? According to this article:

On at least three metrics, the intervention group was in distinctly better shape than the control group, with triglycerides 26% lower on average, waist circumference 1.5 in. (3.9 cm) smaller and 16 more minutes of daily physical activity recorded by the accelerometers, not including the exercise sessions. Blood pressure, total cholesterol, and HDL (or good) cholesterol were also better in the intervention group, though not quite at a level of statistical significance.

Seems not too bad to us. And, as the article also notes, this is incredibly easy to scale up. Getting kids to take a half hour out of their day and play intense games that will get their little hearts pumping honestly sounds pretty fun to us.