High Intensity Interval Training - Another Plus For Karate?

High intensity training (HIT) features in every gym and magazine column these days. It comprises short bursts of intense activity (30 seconds to a few minutes) followed by a lower intensity short recovery period of 30 seconds or less. It takes less time than a jog or bike ride, but you do have to work as hard as you can during those short activity bursts.

HIT was used to help people recover from heart attacks in the early 1970's, but is applicable for sports training and general population fitness. I tend to be put off by anything sold to me in a gym environment so I've tried to find out more. Gyms can be places full of the most ridiculous pseudo-science you will encounter outside of holistic therapy. Places where grains of fact are taken up by the scientifically illiterate and turned into 'treatments' and 'programs' conducted by people who drink oddly coloured drinks to 'stay hydrated'. As an aside here, over hydration with the ensuing brain swelling, kills more athletes than dehydration, a state to which the human body is quite well adapted in health. So what evidence is there for HIT? Well the HIT programs used are heterogenous and applied to differing populations (the unfit healthy, unhealthy and athletes are quite different animals), so it can be difficult to establish what the true effect is, but a trend is emerging. A meta-analysis published this month by BMJ Group reviewed 10 studies in people at risk of cardiovascular disease and supported the use if this type of training to improve cardiorespiratory fitness as measured by maximal oxygen uptake which is known to link strongly with improved survival. HIT was better than medium intensity workouts in this group. It was also safe and enjoyable.

http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2013/10/21/bjsports-2013-092576.full.pdf+html

There is also evidence that HIT is effective in healthy individuals, even if the time periods are very short indeed. Enter the 7-minute workout.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23734250

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-healthfitness/Fulltext/2013/05000/HIGH_INTENSITY_CIRCUIT_TRAINING_USING_BODY_WEIGHT_.5.aspx

When you're next in the dojo you may feel that karate training is also a form of HIT - short bouts of intense activity followed by a brief rest, then off again and again and again. So perhaps we are already reaping the benefits without the need to become trendy and join a 'program'?