You Are Not Too Old For Intensity
Are you concerned that you may be too old to do high-intensity interval training – even though studies show it provides immense health benefits?
Well, a new study shows that age is only a number – at least when it comes to mice and intensity.
Researchers gathered up a bunch of mice who were about 65 in human age. None of the mice had ever really worked out and some of them were considered pretty frail. In other words, when it comes to mice these were the mice that would be perceived as not able to do high-intensity interval training.
The researchers split the mice into two groups, with some of them continuing their relaxing lifestyle, while the others jumped on tiny treadmills and were forced to do some pretty intense walking uphill for a minute followed by a minute of rest – repeated four times each session.
The mice did their HIIT sessions three times a week for four months, which, according to the scientists, was equal to a whopping eight years in human life.
So what happened? According to this article:
…the interval-trained mice seemed in many ways younger than they had been at the start. In particular, they were stronger; when pulled backward gently by researchers, they would cling to a bar longer than at the start of the study. They also had greater endurance capacity, as well as more muscle mass in their hind legs than the sedentary animals, and they scampered faster. Few now were frail.