Making Exercise an Easy HIIT

Forty-two percent of people say they can’t work out because they don’t have the time, according to a 2019 poll. Seventy percent in another poll said they don’t have a routine that works for them. Another reported 15 percent of people are just not happy with how busy their gym is.

Those are problems UNM Exercise & Sports Sciences Associate Professor Fabiano Amorim and doctoral candidate Gabriella Bellissimo are working together to solve.

“You don't want to have the time commitment or the financial commitment to exercise,” Amorim said. “You can do this exercise without the equipment.”

The two set out with $30,000 in grant funding in 2020 with a simple mission. They wanted to conduct a study on short, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and how it impacted heart rate, oxygen levels and insulin resistance in people with obesity. The other component at the top of their minds was to study these workouts without a typical piece of equipment, like a treadmill.

“We would target that population because we know that little change early on is very effective to change their disease risk,” he said.

Between campus and Albuquerque city buildings, Amorim and Bellissimo chose their third partner in the study: stairs.

See the full story and video at http://news.unm.edu/news/unm-team-works-out-a-new-simple-way-to-exercise