High-intensity interval training loved by The Body Coach Joe Wicks ‘STOPS ageing process in its tracks’
High-intensity interval training made famous by the likes of Instagram star Joe Wicks stops the ageing process in its tracks, experts have revealed.
When it comes to pressing pause on our advancing years, they said there is no substitute for HIIT sessions.
The concept promoted by The Body Coach, Kayla Itsines, Clean Eating Alice and The Food Medic, involves switching between intense and less intense bursts of activity during a workout.
Dr Sreekumaran Nair, a doctor and diabetes expert at the prestigious Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said: "These things we are seeing cannot be done by any medicine."
It's no revelation that exercise is good for your health.
It boosts the immune system, keeps the mind sharp, helps you sleep and maintains muscle tone, extending the number of healthy years you will enjoy.
But, experts have long suspected exercise is good for the body - right down to a celluar level.
Until now, they have known little about which exercises help cells rebuild the key structures that decline with age.
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They looked at 36 men and 36 women from two age groups - young volunteers aged 18 to 30, and older volunteers aged 65 to 80.
They were then assigned three different exercise programmes.
One involved high-intensity interval bike training, the second was strength training with weights while the third combined strength training and interval training.
The researchers then took biopsies from the volunteers' thigh muscles and compared samples from people who did no exercise.
They also measured people's amount of lean muscle mass and insulin sensitivity.
While strength training helped build muscle mass, HIIT was the most beneficial at a cellular level.
It also improved their insulin sensitivity - lowering their risk of developing diabetes.
Dr Nair said: "If people have to pick one exercise, I would recommend high-intensity interval training, but I think it would be more beneficial if they could do three to four days of interval training and then a couple days of strength training."
He added: "There are substantial basic science data to support the idea that exercise is critically important to prevent or delay ageing.
"There's no substitute for that."
The findings are published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
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