Here, we present accumulated high-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols, which may be a more feasible and time-efficient strategy than traditional HIIT protocols.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and accumulated exercises are two time-efficient programs to improve health in humans and animal models. However, to date, there are no studies on whether HIIT performed in an accumulated fashion is as effective as a traditional HIIT performed with single daily sessions in improving health markers. This paper presents the effects of a new HIIT protocol, called accumulated HIIT, on body weight gain, maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max), and cardiac hypertrophy in young Wistar rats.
Sixty-day-old male Wistar rats were assigned to three groups: untrained (UN; n = 16), HIIT performed with single daily sessions (1-HIIT; n = 16), and HIIT performed with three daily sessions (3-HIIT; n = 16). Body weight and VO2max were recorded before and after the training period. The VO2max measurements were taken using a metabolic analyzer at the maximal running velocity (Vmax). The training was performed for both HIIT groups five days per week over eight weeks with the same weekly progression of the exercise intensity (85-100% Vmax). The 1-HIIT group performed single daily sessions (6 bouts of 1 min interspersed with 1 min of passive recovery). The 3-HIIT group performed three daily sessions (2 bouts of 1 min interspersed with 1 min of passive recovery with an interval of 4 h between bouts). After the last VO2max test, the rats were euthanized, and their hearts were harvested and weighed.
The results showed that 3-HIIT had similar beneficial effects to 1-HIIT in preventing body weight gain, improving VO2max, and inducing cardiac hypertrophy. These findings reveal for the first time the efficacy of an accumulated HIIT protocol on the health markers of young Wistar rats. This new HIIT protocol may be more feasible than traditional HIIT protocols as exercise can be split into very short sessions throughout a day in this new approach.
A sedentary lifestyle is one of the main risk factors for the development of non-communicable chronic diseases1. However, even with solid evidence for the multiple beneficial effects of exercise on health, a large section of the global population is still sedentary2,3. Regular physical exercise has many positive effects on cardiometabolic4,5 and mental health6,7,8,9. Recently, different time-efficient physical exercise programs10, such as HIIT11 and accumulated exercise12, have been proposed to increase physical exercise adherence and improve health.
HIIT is a time-efficient approach characterized by short periods of high-intensity physical exercise interspersed with periods of low-intensity physical exercise (active recovery) or rest (passive recovery)4. Several studies have demonstrated that HIIT has similar or even superior health effects than the traditional long-duration Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training (MICT), with the advantage of greater adherence by its practitioners4,12,13. Accumulated exercise has also been proposed as an exercise modality to increase adherence and improve health. In this approach, low-to-moderate intensity exercises can be split into two or more short bouts over a day (e.g., two or three bouts of 5-10 min daily)14. Costa Pereira et al.14 showed that an accumulated exercise protocol (three daily sessions with a 4 h interval between sessions, 10-20 min/session, at 50-60% of maximal capacity, five days/week, during eight weeks) had greater positive effects for health markers in young Wistar rats than a traditional MICT (the same exercise protocol but performed with single daily sessions of 30-60 min).
However, to date, studies have focused on the physiological consequences of accumulated exercise performed with short bouts of low-to-moderate intensity. Thus, there is a lack of evidence examining whether HIIT performed in an accumulated fashion (i.e., with multiple short bouts of high-intensity exercise throughout the day) is as effective as a traditional HIIT performed with single daily sessions in improving physiological markers of health.
We decided to use controlled laboratory rats to overcome methodological pitfalls in studies with free-living individuals with distinct daily physical activities and food intake. Moreover, the use of experimental animals allows researchers to perform invasive analyses (e.g., muscular and cardiac biopsy), which are difficult or even impossible in human studies.
We hypothesized that if rats exercise with an accumulated HIIT protocol (performed with three short daily sessions), they might improve cardiorespiratory fitness similarly to rats that exercise with a traditional HIIT protocol (performed with single daily sessions). Thus, this study aimed to investigate and compare the effects of HIIT performed with single daily sessions versus HIIT performed with three shorter daily sessions on VO2max and cardiac hypertrophy of Wistar rats.
This paper highlights the efficacy of an accumulated HIIT protocol for rats for the first time. The accumulated HIIT protocol was as efficient as a traditional HIIT protocol performed with single daily sessions in preventing weight gain, improving VO2max, and inducing cardiac hypertrophy in young male Wistar rats. The improvement in VO2max and cardiac hypertrophy development are the most well-known adaptations to aerobic exercise training and are important health biomarkers17.
Using an MICT protocol with Wistar rats of the same age as those used in the present study, Costa-Pereira et al.14 also found that an accumulated exercise protocol (three daily sessions with a 4 h interval between sessions, 10-20 min/session, at 50-60% of maximal capacity, five days/week over eight weeks) was as efficient as the exercise protocol performed with single daily sessions (single daily sessions, 30-60 min/session, at 50-60% of maximal capacity, five days/week over eight weeks) in preventing weight gain and inducing cardiac hypertrophy14. Costa-Pereira et al. found a decrease of 5.12 and 9.85% in body mass and an increase of 16.22 and 18.61% in heart/body weight ratio in the accumulated and single daily sessions MICT groups, respectively, compared with the untrained control group.
Here, we found superior results using HIIT. The 1-HIIT and 3-HIIT groups presented a decrease of 9.12 and 11.10% in body mass, an increase of 35.51 and 35.19% in VO2max, and an increase of 34.26 and 39.55% in heart/body weight ratio, respectively, compared with the untrained group. Some studies have demonstrated that traditional HIIT protocols are superior to MICT protocols in increasing red blood cell volume, maximal cardiac output (mainly through cardiac ejection and/or contractility), and skeletal muscle mitochondrial density18. These physiological adaptations seem to explain the superiority of traditional HIIT protocols (compared to MICT protocols) in increasing aerobic capacity and inducing physiological cardiac hypertrophy. The results from the present study and the study by Costa Periera et al.14 indicate that this superiority of HIIT vs. MICT can be observed when these modalities are performed with short bouts of exercise throughout a day.
The most important strength of this accumulated HIIT protocol is that its sessions last only 5 min, three times per day. Other strengths are the ease of treadmill setting adjustments and animal handling. Once the maximal velocity is obtained from the VO2max test, the treadmill is set at a flat inclination. The velocity is the same for each bout according to the intensity prescribed for that specific week of training. Another positive aspect is that, during all training sessions, the bouts have the same number and duration: 6 bouts of 1 min interspersed with 1 min of passive recovery performed in single daily sessions for the 1-HIIT group; and 2 bouts of 1 min interspersed with 1 min passive recovery performed three times per day with an interval of 4 h between bouts for the 3-HIIT group. Finally, the choice of passive recovery is another facility as, after the end of each bout, the researcher removes the animal from the treadmill and places it in its cage until the initiation of the next bout. Thus, after the treadmill adjustments are set at the beginning of each exercise session, and no additional adjustments are necessary during the entire exercise session.
The present study also has some limitations. Not all laboratories have a gas analyzer to measure maximum oxygen consumption. However, this limitation can be overcome by using maximum physical capacity protocols that do not use metabolic treadmills to determine VO2max for exercise intensity prescription, including a previously published HIIT protocol19. Another limitation is that, compared with protocols using low-to-moderate intensity, continuous exercise, the animals present more difficulty maintaining the running velocity because it is already high at the beginning of each bout. Thus, the use of shock may be higher in this accumulated protocol than in an MICT protocol. This requires more attention from the researcher, as it is inappropriate to conduct an exercise session with five or more rats simultaneously.
Finally, this physical exercise protocol was designed for healthy young Wistar rats; future studies should test this protocol using rats of different ages and health conditions. Moreover, although a complete characterization of the physiological adaptations to the accumulated HIIT protocol is beyond the scope of the present study, it warrants future investigation. Taken together, these findings reveal, for the first time, the effects of an accumulated HIIT protocol on physiological adaptations to exercise training in young Wistar rats. This new HIIT protocol may be a more feasible strategy than traditional HIIT protocols as, in this new approach, exercise can be split into very short sessions throughout the day.
The authors have nothing to disclose.
We thank the Centro Integrado de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Saúde, (CIPq-Saúde) from the Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri (UFVJM) for providing equipment and technical support for experiments.We thank the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) (finance numbers APQ-00214-21, APQ-00583-21, APQ-00938-18, APQ-03855-16, APQ-01728-18), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (number 438498/2018-6), and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)-Finance code 001 for providing financial suport.
GraphPad Software | GraphPad Prism 7.0: version 7.00 for Mac OS X, GraphPad Software, San Diego, CA, USA | N/A | Statistical program |
Metabolic analyzer | Oxyleptro, Harvard Apparatus, Spain | N/A | Metabolic analyzer |
Rats | Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri | N/A | 32 male Wistar rats |
Treadmill | Insight | N/A | Treadmill |
Weighing scale | precision electronic digital weighing scale to weigh rats |
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