4 min read
Key Points
- New research suggests that short, intense exercise sprints can alter proteins in your blood.
- The proteins can make your cardiovascular system more efficient.
- Cardiologists suggest picking up the pace here and there.
It’s true that any kind of exercise is better for you than none, but new research suggests that a series of sprints could make a serious impact on your cardiovascular health. Surprisingly, these shorter sprint efforts might have an even greater effect than a long, moderate-intensity workout.
The findings get pretty technical, but cardiologists say they reinforce the idea that challenging your body through exercise can do a lot for your overall health. “These changes can help the body and heart to be more efficient,” says Cheng-Han Chen, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California.
The results don’t suggest that you should entirely swap your more moderate workouts for sprints, but they do imply that you can get a heart-healthy, solid workout in just a few minutes. Here’s why.
Meet the experts: Shaline Rao, MD, chief of the Division of Cardiology at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island; Cheng-Han Chen, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California.
What did the study find?
The study, which was published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, had young, healthy participants work out on a stationary bike. One group did six sets of all-out cycling sprints for 30 seconds at a time, while another group cycled continuously for 90 minutes at a comfortable pace.
The researchers took blood samples before, immediately after, and three hours after the workouts. The researchers discovered that those all-out sprints changed nearly a quarter of the proteins in the participants’ blood. But the moderately paced workout changed less than 0.25% of those proteins.
Sprinting sparked changes in more than 200 metabolites, leading to a surge in proteins that are involved in blood-vessel growth, tissue remodeling, and hormonal signaling. Those changes even impacted fat cells, causing changes in gene activity and shifting how the cells processed fuel and sensed the availability of nutrients. (The same effect wasn’t seen after moderate exercise.)
Researchers then compared the proteins that responded to the sprinting workouts with health data from more than 53,000 people from the UK Biobank. From this, they determined that those changed proteins were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease. More than 25 percent of the proteins were also linked with slower biological aging.
Why is sprinting good for heart health?
Experts have a few theories about why sprints might be better for your health. One is that sprints cause cellular stress, says Shaline Rao, MD, chief of the Division of Cardiology at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island. “Maximum effort forces muscle cells and tissue to adapt instantly to heavy metabolic demand,” she says.
Sprints may also impact your hormones, changing how fat cells process fuel and respond to the hormone insulin, ultimately helping to support your weight and metabolic health, she says. “Higher-intensity exercise like sprinting is more beneficial to health in general,” says Cheng-Han Chen, MD, interventional cardiologist and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California.
All of these changes that can be caused by sprinting (or other high-intensity exercises) help the cardiovascular system work better, Dr. Chen says. “More specifically, the changes seem to help with blood vessel health, obesity-controlling hormones, and, in general, creating a more efficient system,” he says.
How can you put this into practice?
You can try gradually adding sprints to your workout routine to see the benefits. “Mix steady baseline movement with short, controlled bursts of high effort,” Dr. Rao says. (She suggests building up to this slowly, like starting with brisk walking or light cycling intervals before going all-out.)
While you can also just try to cycle or run really fast, Dr. Chen recommends aiming for 85 percent of your maximum output to get the perks. Most fitness trackers will calculate this for you, or you can calculate your maximum heart rate by multiplying your age by 0.7, then subtracting that from 207.
It’s also a good idea to allow for proper rest in between HIIT sessions to make sure you don’t overdo it, Dr. Rao adds.
How to approach exercise for heart health
This doesn’t mean there’s no room in your life for running or cycling at a more comfortable pace. The recommendation to try to get in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week still stands, Dr. Chen says. “But this information shows that it’s possible to get quality, short bursts of exercise throughout the day” if you don’t have time for a full-on workout, he says.
It also makes the case for moving at a faster pace here and there. So, the next time you’re doing cardio, try incorporating sprints into the mix. It could do your heart health a serious solid.
Carina Hsieh, MPH, is the deputy features editor of Women’s Health. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience working in media and has covered everything from beauty, fashion, travel, lifestyle, pets, to health.
She began her career as an intern in the fashion closet at Cosmopolitan where she worked her way up to Senior Sex & Relationships Editor. While covering women’s health there, she discovered her passion for health service journalism and took a break to get her Masters in Public Health. Post-grad school, she worked as a freelance writer and as The Daily Beast’s first Beauty, Health, and Wellness Reporter.
Carina is an alum of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Yale School of Public Health. She and her French Bulldog, Bao Bao, split their time between Brooklyn and Connecticut. She enjoys reformer Pilates, (slow) running, and smelling the fancy toiletries in boutique fitness class locker rooms.