Yet Another HIIT vs LSD Study

[MikeMartial]

It seems every week there's a new comparision study popping up. This one uses a small number of athletes over only a 2 week period, but it does demonstrate the efficiency of HIIT, as far as time commitment.

Does Short-Term Interval Training Produce Similar Adaptations to Traditional Endurance Training?

Recently researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada compared the physiological and performance effects of both interval and traditional endurance based training. Sixteen college aged men were recruited and placed into one of two groups. The sprint training group performed four to six all out maximal (~700 w) 30 second sprints separated by four minutes of recovery. The traditional endurance training group performed continuous exercise for 90 – 120 minutes at an intensity of 65% of maximal aerobic capacity or a power output of 175 W. Both groups utilized a cycle ergometer for all training and testing. The duration of training was two weeks. Performance was assessed by pre and post training time trials that were designed to measure the time to complete 50 kJ and 750 kJ of work on the cycle ergometer. Muscle samples were also taken prior to and after the two weeks of training. When comparing the time commitment of the two protocols the sprint training required 2.5 hours while the traditional endurance training program required 10.5 hours. The results of the study demonstrated that there were no differences in the time to complete either the 50 kJ or 750 kJ time trial. However, the sprint training group improved their time by 10.1% (~60 min to ~55 min) while the traditional endurance training group only improved their time by 7.5% (~60 min to ~58 min) in the 750 kJ time trial. Additionally, both groups exhibited no differences in muscle oxidative capacity, muscle buffering capacity, and muscle glycogen utilization. Based upon these findings the authors concluded that a sprint training program may be a very time efficient way to induce rapid physiological adaptations similar to those seen with traditional long term endurance training which can result in improvements in both anaerobic and aerobic performance. Therefore, consideration should be given to high intensity interval training as a tool for inducing rapid endurance performance gains.
Gibala MJ, Little JP, van Essen M, Wilkin GP, Burgomaster KA, Safdar A, Raha S, Tarnopolsky MA. (2006). Short-term sprint interval versus traditional endurance training: similar initial adaptations in human skeletal muscle and exercise performance. Journal of Applied Physiology, 575(3):901 — 911.

[XTrainer]

Thanks, I just did my HIIT. Always feels good to have your theories reinforced.

[Brendon Katz]

nice. those aint all the benefits of aerobic exercise though.

[STWACOACH]

There are benefits t both, although we rarely use LSD. But this brought up the main reason why. If I have a guy lifting and doing MMA, to add 10 hours of running a week on top of it, is nuts. 2.5 hours of HIIT well we don't even hit that much. But LSD will always loose in the time department.