Body by Science / HIIT Experiment

[Persej]

For a long time, it was known that exercise is good not only for the muscles, but also for the bones. And it looks like the lactate is one of the reasons for that:

Lactate Mediates the Bone Anabolic Effect of High-Intensity Interval Training by Inducing Osteoblast Differentiation - PubMed

Lactate may mediate the bone anabolic effect of HIIT and serve as a potential inexpensive therapeutic strategy for bone augmentation.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Also, bicarbonate helps to increase the lactate during the exercise:

High doses of sodium bicarbonate increase lactate levels and delay exhaustion in a cycling performance test - PubMed

The present study found that 0.3 g · kg^-1 BW NaHCO₃ is effective in improving performance and improving blood lactate levels in cyclists compared with control and 0.1 g · kg^-1 BW NaHCO_3.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[whitecoast]

I watched a cool video on the benefits of sprint interval training, and I wanted to share what it said here.

According to the study cited in the video sprint interval training increases human growth hormone by up to 2000% and testosterone by 38% .

This was achieved by the following procedure, roughly adapted:

1. 5 to 10 minute jog to warm up
2. light stretching to warm up
3. sprinting interval: four or five 20 second sprints at max speed with 4 minutes of rest between each interval.
4. light stretching to cool down

One paradox noticed during training is that when people hear "maximum speed" they tend to tense up their bodies too much; according to the video if people get told to run only at 90% or 95% max speed they actually run a little bit faster than if told to run at 100% max speed.

Other options include:

• sprinting up a hill to increase strength gains in the legs and improving sprinting technique by increasing knee drive.
• sprinting on sand or long grass to train smaller stabilizer muscles in the feet/ankles/knees and increase strength in the core/obliques.

The original video is here: