Cardio workouts that take less than 10 minutes only two to three times per week? Surely this REHIT concept cannot work; or can it?
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week to maintain good health and cardio fitness. This has been the recommendation since they were published in 2013. The first edition published in 2008 contains the same recommendation.
This has been the standard recommendation for fitness professionals to use to help their clients maintain good health and improve their cardio fitness. As a fitness provider, I have relied on this recommendation to be a safe and effective tool to share with my clients. I have helped them break the 150 minutes down to cardio sessions that they can fit into their schedule and tolerate doing. For many people 30 minutes of cardio activity feels like eternity and convincing them that they only need to do these 30 minute sessions 5 times a week requires a lot of persuasion.
Finding time to Exercise
Everyone wants to be healthy when given a choice. But many people really have a hard time finding 30 minutes during their day that they can devote to cardio exercise. Especially after you educate them that this is only one component of good health. They also will need to find time for resistance training to build strength and increase their bone density, maintain a healthy diet and find time for flexibility and self care. Once you come up with a structured plan to help them maintain good health it begins to resemble a second career for your client.
Enjoy Exercise?
Another reason many people do not follow through on the recommended 150 minutes is due to the fact that many people really do not enjoy exercising. This is a very hard concept for many fitness professionals to understand. We all love exercising and that is why we got into the field in the first place. When we say we understand how difficult it is, we are lying. We don’t understand because we really cannot understand how it feels to not love exercise. This has been a very hard lesson for me to learn. Many of my clients do not see me because they want to exercise. They see me because they don’t. They rely on me to help them achieve their goals and make them do what they do not want to do.
So when I first heard about the new REHIT workout it really didn’t appeal much to me. It seemed too good to be true and there wasn’t many scientific studies proving it’s success when it first came out. Plus, I felt that the workout was over before I even had a chance to start enjoying it. I never considered that most people would prefer it this way because to them the shorter the torture of “exercise” the better.
Since then I have been seeing more and more information on the REHIT workout technique so I thought it may be time to really explore it as a possible cardio alternative for my clients.
What is REHIT?
REHIT is a high intensity interval training (HIIT) workout that has been reduced to only 8 minutes and 20 seconds. You may have noticed that REHIT is missing one of the I’s from HIIT. I am not sure where the I went, LOL.
A REHIT workout looks like this.
- 2 minutes of complete rest ( laying on your back and deep breathing with your eyes closed if possible)
- 20 seconds of all out high intensity exercise. RPE of 9 or 10
- 3 minutes of complete rest ( laying on your back and deep breathing with your eyes closed if possible)
- 20 seconds of all out high intensity exercise. RPE of 9 or 10
- 3 minutes of complete rest ( laying on your back and deep breathing with your eyes closed if possible)
That’s it! You may notice that the rest periods are much longer then the activity periods and it turns out that they are just as important and maybe even more important than the time you spend doing the activity. I will explain why later in this post.
The frequency of this workout should be 2-3 times per week. Studies have not shown that more times per week has increased the benefits so 2-3 times per week seem to be the magic number. This means that now your weekly recommended amount of cardio exercise is only 25 minutes per week. What are you going to do with the other 125 minutes per week you have just gained?
The Science Behind REHIT
I originally dismissed REHIT as another health “hack” where people were just trying to get results without really putting in any effort. I have always been under the impression that working hard is what really brings success and looking for “shortcuts” implies weakness. There have always been many “tricks” to losing weight and “tricking” your metabolism often is not very healthy and does not bring long term success. So I wrote this workout off as another “trick” and didn’t bother to dig any deeper.
However, after seeing it pop up in many reputable health publications such as the NIH-National Library of Medicine, the Mayo Clinic, Livestrong and ACE- American Council on Exercise, etc. I decided to give it another look and learn about “how” this technique is supposed to bring results.
REHIT seems to work because it creates a sudden and substantial increase in energy demand, and this disrupts your body’s internal metabolism. This increased energy demand creates a tremendous increase in adenosine triphosphate (ATP—the body’s energy source). At first your body is slow to respond to this initial energy demand but quickly adapts to better prepare for future episodes of increased energy demand, and in this process the body undergoes rapid adaptations. The rest periods serve as signals to your body that it is safe and can repair and adapt.
To explain this further. Your body contain trillions of Mitochondria and these organelles are responsible for making most of your ATP. When your body experiences these rapid activity intervals while being at total rest it interprets these intervals as a threat to it’s safety and begins to prepare for future episodes of increased energy demand. In order to prepare, the body needs to make more mitochondria. More mitochondria equate to more ATP and more ATP means higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness.
More is better?
If you are like me you may be thinking that if 2 short burst of activity works than more would be better. More bursts of energy demand should lead to more mitochondria and more ATP? However, this thinking seems to be wrong. That is great news for all of you who do not want to do more. The process of making more mitochondria is known as mitochondria biogenesis. This process is regulated by a protein called peroxisome proliferator-activated 1a receptor gamma coactivator (PGC-1α). This protein is stimulated by an enzyme known as AMPK, which is activated in an energy crisis, such as REHIT. However, research has shown that AMPK activity is maximally activated or “saturated” with just a couple of “all-out” 20-second sprints two to three days per week and does not increase further with additional sprint repetitions. So at least for now, “more is not better.”
Benefits
Studies have shown many benefit to performing REHIT workouts over the traditional longer cardio endurance workout. These include…
- Improved aerobic capacity or VO2Max. This is your body’s ability to use oxygen during intense exercise.
- Increased insulin sensitivity ( your body’s ability to use insulin and reducing the risk of diabetes)
- Reductions in systolic blood pressure
- An increase in resting metabolism by creating a higher Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). This means that you are burning more calories at rest and with a proper diet you will experience weight loss if you are looking to lose weight.
- Improvements in strength, flexibility, mood and balance have also been seen. With my experience I have definitely experienced more energy and felt more focused after a REHIT session.
In Summary
So in summary, it appears that REHIT may actually be a scientific proven solution to those who want to improve their cardiovascular health but do not want to spend much time and effort exercising. Although this saddens me, I am already “missing” all of the time I spend completing my cardio exercise routine. I am sure this is very good news for many of you. My number one goal as a fitness professional has always been to help my clients succeed in improving their health and fitness goals so in order to provide them with the best tools for success I now believe that I need to share this concept with them.
This exploration has begun to shift my thinking as a fitness professional and I will continue to explore the many other “bio hacks” that are being scientifically studied to see how I can help my clients improve other areas of health and fitness with less effort on their part. Be sure to follow me on social or return to my website often to share in this journey with me.
If you are interested in becoming one of my clients please fill out the form below and I will be in contact soon.
