HIIT Is Beneficial For All Ages Gillian White – MSc, PhD Candidate, Department of Exercise Sciences, University of Toronto
The Real FastTwitchGrandma’s of Canada When I first heard about FastTwitchGrandma and the concept of what a FastTwitchGrandma was, the first things I thought of were Patti Campbell and her exercise classes. For the last couple of years, my mom has been doing exercise classes with some other ladies of her vintage in the converted basement of Patti’s house. My memory of Patti from my childhood was of a no-nonsense gym teacher who looked like she could sprint the track and kick your ass without a bead of sweat, so it didn’t surprise me to hear my mom saying that “her muscles were so sore because of that Patti Campbell”. To get a first-hand look at Patti’s classes and learn more about Patti’s approach and outlook on providing high intensity exercise classes for older adults (women), I laced up and joined my mom for one of her famed 6:30am classes.
The Scene The first thing I noticed when I walked downstairs, was that this was no joke. Patti has a full set up of equipment you’d expect to find in a downtown fitness studio, complete with boxes, TRXs, free weights, hurdle bars, and medicine balls. Juxtaposing this observation was noting how happy the ladies seemed to be there! Though, it was sort of high-energy excitement that had a thread of anxiety as they traded stories of last night’s dinner parties while waiting to hear what Patti had in store for them (or, rather, “us” I should say).
The Workout The workout itself was like what you would find any 20- or 30-something doing at and urban fitness studio. With top 40 remixes playing in the background and a cardio and mobility 1
warm-up, the bulk of the workout is a mix of Tabata sets interspersed between strength circuits with no muscle left untouched. Speaking after the workout, Patti tells me that her objectives when she’s developing her workouts are to ensure there’s enough variety to keep it interesting and to activate all the major muscle groups through functional movements. You can expect a lot of squats, lunges, step-ups, core and upper body stability, as well as upper body strength. While the exercises and intensity were on par with what you’d see at U of T at 5pm, what was more impressive – while Patti ensures that each exercise has modifications to reduce difficulty and prevent loss of form or intensity – I didn’t see anyone use these (and we did burpees! And push-ups! And chest flies! …I could go on). This class and the mentality the belies it fit so nicely with the motives for FastTwitchGrandma – 1. There’s no reason you need to jettison intense exercise with age 2. Training like you’re young lets your body continue to function like it’s young, allowing you to keep up with life as you age 3. It can be genuinely enjoyable! In part informing the exercise selection of her workouts, Patti notes that strength in general (particularly upper body strength in women), seems to be ignored in the activities that one gravitates towards with age (think golf, walking, cycling), but this really doesn’t have to be the case. Just looking at the arms of these ladies proves that point! Toned arms aside, when asked about the goals that she has for her participants, Patti says she has no specific goals for them but when she hears someone say they’re thankful for all the squats because they had a near miss on the ski hill and were saved by their new-found leg strength or other translations of her workout classes into the improving the women’s function in their everyday life, she counts it as a win. I can’t imagine my late Nana making a backseat recovery on a ski hill. I just can’t. (Granted, Nana didn’t ski, but that’s beside the point!) And this perfectly exemplifies the value of this 2
Fast-Twitch Grandma movement – staying functionally younger and changing what it means to be a “grandma”.
The Benefits Outside of the physical (and cognitive – remembering the 12-exercise circuit made my brain pulse) benefits of these type of higher intensity strength classes, I think one of the most important elements of the format of this class is the group element. Speaking for my own mom, getting up at 6am to do multiple sets of strength exercises with short enough rests to keep your heart pounding is not really her modus operandi. When I asked her and some of the other ladies in the class why they come and what keep them coming back, the major themes emerged of joining because either they needed some new fitness activity or because they knew someone in the class, and sticking with it because they see and feel benefits and they’ve become a tight little exercise gang.
Social Element They note the importance of the social element, the accountability to a) show up and, b) work to your best ability, combined with the enjoyment that comes from socializing as a part of your workout. These themes were discussed in Dr. Cassie Pheonix’s research detailing the experiences of women in the U.K. participating in a running group so it’s not a novelty or a one-off. Women like doing things together – and that include burpees and mountain climbers! Another important note is that outside of these classes, these ladies weren’t sedentary. Tennis, golf, snowshoeing/hiking, and other lower intensity fitness classes were common place, but none of them seem to come from an overly competitive or high-intensity background. All to say, a base level of fitness helps, but you don’t have to be an IronWoman to get into high intensity exercise in your retirement years.
Takeaways From Patti’s Class We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: high intensity exercise is beneficial for all ages! Avoid cutting out the hard exercises, especially upper body strength work, and embrace the burn! 3
Mix it up – a variety of exercises keeps it interesting and builds the whole body. Make it functional – squats, lunges, planks – these are fundamental exercises for a reason – namely, they mimic things we do in real-life that we’d like to keep doing well as we age. Harness the social power – commitment to the group translates into commitment to yourself. You’re less likely to find (and use!) an excuse, you’ll work harder because everyone else is working hard, and you’ll look forward to going to the gym (or wherever your exercise takes place). Let the group lift the burden of motivating yourself! As a parting word, I’ll just say that this workout really surprised me: the format, the exercises, the fact that the ladies seemed to have an easier time with push-ups than me (I swear I work out a lot too) – it was all quite impressive. Patti might just make a FastTwitchGrandma out of me yet!
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5 Ways HIIT Improves Fitness in Women Alyssa Bialowas
Research poll after research poll, male and female adults express that one of the biggest barriers they face to frequent exercise is lack of time. One common assumption is that exercise and physical activity at moderate-intensity for a long period is the superior way to burn fat and improve your overall body composition, which is heavily debated. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is the most time-efficient form of exercise to adapt body composition and improve various health-related indices in adults at various ages. HIIT improves body composition and improves the maximal aerobic fitness in women of all shapes and sizes, at various health and fitness levels. Five ways that HIIT improves body composition in women: 1. HIIT increases muscle oxidative capacity in overweight women; 2. Increases the capacity for fat oxidization during exercise in women; 3. Lowers cardiometabolic risk in healthy women; 4. Optimizes glycemic control in women with type II diabetes; 5. Increases exercise performance in women over the long-term. 5
Lets define a few these terms for clarity – Muscle oxidative capacity – the muscle’s maximal capacity to use oxygen consumed per gram of muscle per hour. The activity of oxidative enzymes affect oxidative capacity, and these very simple enzymes play very complex roles in our mitochondria. Fat oxidization – a process by which the stored, massive lipid molecules are broken back down into triglycerides and fatty acids (big lipid molecules breaking down into their smaller parts). Cardiometabolic risk – chances of having diabetes, heart disease or stroke. Glycemic control – typical levels of blood sugar in a person with diabetes.
Improvements in Muscle Oxidative Capacity, Body Composition and Exercise Performance In a study by Gibala et al. (2013), women who stated to exercise less frequently and who are by definition overweight, participated in a long-term 15-week fitness intervention that compared moderateintensity exercise and HIIT. HIIT was more effective than moderate-intensity continuous exercise at reducing whole body fat mass. In their fitness intervention, researchers were interested in the effects of eating a meal before or after the HIIT intervention, and found that fasted-state exercise was more effective in improving body composition, muscle oxidative capacity, and greater insulin sensitivity in overweight women. The study showed that skeletal muscle mitochondrial and glucose transport capacity (muscle oxidative capacity) increased over a 6-week training period. In addition, this study showed that body fat percentage in overweight women decreased following the HIIT training program. Similarly, low volume HIIT was found to increase muscle mitochondrial capacity and improves glycemic control in women with type II diabetes.
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Increased Capacity for Fat Oxidation During Exercise in Women Researchers in the field have long studied the effects of HIIT on body composition in adults. In 2007, Bonen et al. found that in moderately active women, HIIT increased the capacity for fat oxidization during exercise in only a two-week period. They studied eight women participate in seven HIIT sessions and examined mitochondrial enzyme activities, fatty acid transport proteins, skeletal muscle fuel content, and metabolic, hormonal, and cardiovascular responses to exercise. They found that exercise whole body fat oxidization increased 36% after HIIT, and after two weeks of HIIT sessions, whole body and skeletal muscle capacity for fatty acid oxidization during exercise in women. No matter how old, healthy, fit, overweight, or living with a more serious health issue, HIIT improves body composition in all women and increases exercise performance in women over the long-term. This means improvements in your cardiovascular fitness and your overall health, which will boost your mental and social well-being.
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Maximize Results By Combining Yoga & HIIT Alyssa Bialowas
The effects of yogic exercise and its ability to increase an individual’s aerobic capacity are seldom studied. Yoga is widely understood to confer benefits to a person’s physical, emotional, and spiritual well being, and studies that compare the effects of yoga and exercise seem to indicate that yoga is more effective than exercise at targeting health-related outcome measures in both healthy and diseased populations (Ross & Thomas, 2010). A recent study by Desai et al. (2017) supports the idea that high-speed yoga produces significantly greater muscle activation than regular speed yoga, and offers health benefits beyond those of traditional aerobic and strength training.
The Study: Twenty-two adults with at least one year of yoga experience who practiced yoga at least twice a week performed a maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) test on the treadmill on the first day of the study. On the second and third day, muscle activation patterns during a sequence of yoga poses were evaluated using electromyography (EMG) during the 8
high-speed yoga condition or the standard-speed yoga condition. Participants were randomized between the two conditions, the testing sessions were one hour and the study lasted two weeks.
What They Found: While the study did not find a significant difference in activation levels of specific muscles during either the standard-speed yoga pose sequence or the high-speed yoga pose sequence, there was a significant difference in EMG amplitude (greater muscle activity) during the transition phase of high-speed yoga, compared with the amplitude measured during the transition phase of standard-speed yoga. Put simply, the researchers found that muscle activation during an overall yoga sequence (held pose and transition phase combined) does not differ from standard-speed yoga to high-speed yoga. However, the higher frequency of transition phases in high-speed yoga leads to a significant difference in muscle activity than standard-speed yoga. The results of this study indicate that high-speed yoga that integrates yogic exercises with a high rate of transition phases is an aerobically challenging exercise similar to high intensity interval training.
Takeaway: To conclude, this study conducted by Desai et al. (2017) indicates that high-speed yoga produces significantly greater muscle activation during the fast-paced transition sequences than regular speed yoga, with similar health benefits of high intensity interval training. Future research must thoroughly examine the combination of plyometric integrated fastspeed yoga and HIIT to maximize overall health.
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8 Ways To Turn Any Space Into A HIIT Workout Alyssa Bialowas
We all know what it feels like to be on an epic workout stretch and then face an intense week of meetings, deadlines and social obligations to ruin a perfectly good streak. For the millions of reasons in which our busy lives keep us away from getting to the gym rarely do we think of transforming our home or workspaces into your personal workout area. The most beneficial type of exercise you can perform in minimal space is high-intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT leads to muscle retention, increases your overall aerobic capacity and your cardiovascular fitness, improves your endurance, and helps you burn calories after the fact while resting.
Here are 8 ways to turn any space into a HIIT workout space: 1) Just Do It Whether at home, at work, or on vacation, a personal investment in fitness equipment can increase the intensity of your HIIT workouts. Dumbbells, resistance bands, jumping ropes, 10
kettlebells, a bosu trainer or stability ball, and a yoga mat are some of my favorite pieces of transportable equipment to use in my workouts. That being said – be aware of your personal level of exercise competence. Don’t push yourself too hard or use equipment or furniture that you’re uncomfortable using in your workouts. 2) Measure The Space Then, you want to measure the space you’re working with – whether your kitchen, your bedroom, living room, basement, backyard, or office, you’ll want to know if the space can accommodate the exercise ideas you have in mind, or if you need to tweak your moves to fit in an environment with minimal/zero space. Measure your time – when I only have 15 minutes, I spend about 3 minutes on 5 different exercises, split up into short 30-second bursts, with little to no rest in-between sets. With more time, pace out your exercises and push hard to hit your peak cardio output. 3) Your Living Room I encourage you to use your own furniture (furniture that you can guarantee is firmly secured to the floor or furniture that won’t slip on your floor material – lets avoid all trips to the hospital at all costs). Use your couch for triceps dips – below the cushions, you’ll find the frame of most couches is the perfect distance from the ground for triceps dips. Use the coffee table for Bulgarian squats, and a secured dining room chair for elevated press-ups. Set up your yoga mat, or put a towel down on your floor so you can add an abdominal exercise into your circuit. Incorporate the use of your staircase into your circuit. On the stairs, the up-up-down-down technique can assist in building aerobic capacity while increasing leg strength – stairs specifically target your calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. Stairs are also really fun! Once I started and couldn’t stop and woke up with some pretty insane leg cramps. 4) Your Office woman working out in officeThere are days when you can only fit in a 20-30 minute workout on your lunch hour, and if you have an office that you work out of, chances are you have enough room to move aside some furniture and carve out space for a HIIT session. Store a yoga mat in your office for this reason, with a fresh 11
change of clothes and gym clothes. Any desk at waist-height can be used for counter pushups. Place your hands on your desk shoulder-width apart, or slightly wider. Stand approximately three feet away from the desk, and straighten your spine by tightening your abs. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Inclined pushups are beneficial because you can target your chest (the lower portion of your pectoralis major) and upper body more than regular pushups. For beginners, start at an 80-degree angle and as you develop your strength, gradually decrease that angle to 65, 45, eventually to 30 degrees. If you can fit your yoga mat in your office, you can get down on the ground for an abdominal workout! 5) Your Backyard / Patio If you backyard or patio has enough space to fit a few yoga mats, you have enough space to set up a full HIIT circuit to complete at any time. If you choose wisely to invest in workout equipment like dumbbells, kettlebells, jumping ropes and bosu balls, bring them outside with you so you can take full advantage of the additional space outdoors.
Set up your HIIT full body circuit as follows – 3 sets of 15 kettlebell squats, 3 sets of 15 bosu ball squats, 3 sets of 15 bosu ball push ups (ball side down), 3 sets of 15 sit ups (balance on ball side-up), 3 sets of 10 lunges on each leg while holding dumbbells (weight of your choice), 3 sets of 2 minutes of skipping with your jump rope. 6) Your Bedroom Use a chair or your bed to elevate one of your legs for your Bulgarian squats so you can achieve a deeper burn and targeting of your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and core muscles. Use your low night-side table or a coffee table for decline pushups – beneficial for muscle development and also increases blood flow to your upper body. The increase of blood flow to your upper body will assist in decreasing post exercise soreness. Measuring your space to see if you’ll have a full range of movement in your exercises without hitting anything, use your yoga mat as a platform for pushups, situps, squats, and burpees! 12
7) On a business trip / Vacation The lethargy from a vacation or from a work trip that turns out to be especially gluttonous can leave you feeling unhealthy, unfit, and really in the mood for an intense workout session. To keep your workout regimen strong while on vacation, try to pack a jump rope or resistance band with you in your suitcase. You can use both of these in your circuit in your room, use your bed frame or coffee table for triceps dips, use a chair to elevate one of your legs for a deeper burn and targeting of your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and core muscles. If your vacation is (hopefully) tropical – use the sand on the beach as an obstacle in your HIIT circuit! The unstable surface of sand stabilizes the muscles in your lower body – specifically your knees, your ankles, and your feet, thereby strengthening them at the same time. Sand sprints will test your cardio as well as the muscles in your lower body. For upper body exercises in your circuit, bring your resistance band down to the beach for a series of upper body exercises that work your chest, shoulders, and arms. Perform 3 sets of at least 3 different exercises, such as pushups or the standing chest press (12-15 reps), the overhead press (8-12 reps), and the concentration curl (8-10 reps) for your full body HIIT circuit. (See https://greatist.com/fitness/resistance-band-exercises for a long list of full-body resistance band exercises). 8) In Your Neighborhood Use the steep incline of a grassy hill or a steep hill with very light traffic to incorporate short inclined sprints. Short sprints as part of your circuit is a great way to increase your aerobic capacity, your overall cardio fitness, and muscle retention throughout your entire body. In addition to grassy hills, I also encourage you to use any staircases that you may find outside as part of your circuit, again as stairs specifically target your calves, quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes. Use a park bench for triceps dips or pushups on an incline or decline, and bring your resistance band with you so you can add bicep curls, triceps extensions, and the forward raise for your shoulders. There you have it, 8 ways to turn any space into a HIIT workout space. Now you have absolutely zero excuses for not working out!
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References Bonen, A., Galloway, S., Heigenhauser, G., Spriet, L., and Talanian, J. (2007). Two weeks of high intensity aerobic interval training increases the capacity for fat oxidization during exercise in women. Journal of Applied Physiology, 102, 4, 1439-1447. Gibala, M., Gillen, J., Ludzki, A., Percival, M., and Tarnopolsky, M. (2013). Interval training in the fed or fasted state improves body composition and muscle oxidative capacity in overweight women. Obesity Research Journal, 21, 11, 2249-2255. Desai, T., Massoni-Martins, M., Mooney, K., Potiaumpai, M., Rodriguez, R., Signorile, J., & Wong, C. (2017). Difference in Muscle Activation Patterns During High-Speed Versus Standard-Speed Yoga: A Randomized Sequence Crossover Study. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 30, 24-29. Ross, A. & Thomas, S. (2010). The Health Benefits of Yoga and Exercise: A Review of Comparison Studies. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16, 3-12. http://www.livestrong.com/article/206687-what-are-the-benefits-of-incline-pushups/ https://greatist.com/fitness/resistance-band-exercises
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