Twelve Minutes' Exercise Per Week 'Enough to Stay Fit'

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Four-minute bursts of high-intensity exercise such as running on a treadmill, three times a week are enough to increase fitness, researchers found.

Overweight volunteers who undertook the regime for 10 weeks increased their body’s oxygen uptake – a measure of fitness – by 10 per cent and saw small decreases in their blood pressure and glucose levels.

Health guidelines generally state that we should undertake at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise per week in order to stay healthy.

But the new study suggests that just 12 minutes of high-intensity exercise, spread out across three sessions, could be enough to keep us fit and healthy, researchers said.

The team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim studied the effects of different exercise regimes on 24 men who were overweight but otherwise healthy.