Seniors High Intensity Interval Training (SH…)

I recently saw the film ‘Lion’ (which is brilliant, by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet). I also listened to Adrian Chiles, on radio 5live interviewing Charles Eugster, the person in the photo. The film is about Saroo, who at just five years old, lost and alone in a city has to run for his life, in one of the earlier scenes. Charles, on the other hand, at 97 years of age, runs to be alive.

I have since read Charles’ book ‘Age is just a number’ which reiterates the understanding he has of exercise, amongst other things, that he displayed in his radio interview. In the interview Charles talks knowledgeably about muscle development and exercise intensity, referring to Professor Jamie Timmons, whom I remembered being acknowledged in a book that I had read back in 2012, about high intensity workouts.

What a moment to hear a nonagenarian talk so lucidly about an aspect of exercise that I am also very interested in! An example of a 9 day exercise programme is covered in Charles’ book which includes interval training. But what is it and how come a 97 year old is doing such potentially harmful exercise, when surely he should be taking care not to do anything too strenuous-surely he is a candidate for a coronary?

I do believe this is an important consideration for anyone interested in exercise, especially as high intensity interval training (HIIT) has been very newsworthy over the past decade or so. I will be returning to it in future blogs. At it’s simplest high intensity training is brief periods of repeated bursts of all-out exercise interspersed with periods of recovery. The level of difficulty in a session can be controlled in a variety of ways, such as via the intensity and the duration or the number of sprints. Typically, the total time commitment for a high intensity training protocol is often no more than 15 minutes, with between one and three minutes of actual exercise. Due to the adaptations that this type of training produces in the body, these will likely be the most productive 15 minutes of exercise that you have or will undertake!

All exercise is ‘cardio’ but HIIT is way safer than moderate, highly repetitive activities such as jogging/running. And more effective for cardiovascular health….

Thanks for reading!