Dr. Lance Dalleck
Even amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, heart disease remains the number one cause of death worldwide, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year. The risk of heart disease can be significantly reduced by positively modifying various risk factors, such as high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking. However, an individual’s level of fitness best predicts one’s risk for heart disease.
High-intensity interval training like CAROL’s REHIT protocol can help you get fit faster than conventional exercise, while optimizing your cardiovascular health.
What is HIIT and why is it important for heart health?
One of the classic methods for fitness improvements is through high-intensity interval training (HIIT). This tactic has long been a staple of training programs for endurance athletes. However, HIIT has only found its way into the daily workout regimen of fitness enthusiasts within the last decade. CAROL’s REHIT protocol is similar to HIIT, but workout sessions consist of two 10- to 20-second sprints separated by up to three minutes of recovery periods.
So just how important is physical fitness to your overall cardiovascular health? One study explains that if one could eradicate low physical fitness levels across the global population, then more premature deaths could be avoided. The study states that the number of deaths caused by traditional risk factors such as obesity, smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes can be prevented by simply eliminating them through increased physical fitness.
How can you improve your fitness and faster with CAROL?
Clearly, sufficient levels of fitness are paramount to overall cardiovascular health. Fortunately, CAROL provides users with potent and time-efficient interval workouts for improving fitness levels. Our laboratory recently compared fitness gains over eight weeks of training with CAROL’s REHIT protocol for three to four days per week compared to traditional workouts, which adheres to the public health physical activity recommendation of at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, like treadmill training, for up to five days a week. Here are two major takeaways for CAROL bike users:
1. CAROL workouts are far more time-efficient than conventional exercise. The total weekly exercise time of traditional workouts is, on average, 150 minutes. In comparison, CAROL workouts last just 8 min 40 secs per ride and will take up just 26 minutes of your time per week.
2. Most impressively, the CAROL interval group in the ACE study experienced a nearly twofold greater improvement in physical fitness (12.3 percent) relative to the traditional, moderate-intensity exercise group (6.9 percent).
Interval exercise with CAROL is an effective, safe, and time-efficient strategy for you to get fit faster, while optimizing your heart health. You can read more about how CAROL’s REHIT protocol increases heart function and how VO2 Max is also a major factor in improving your cardiorespiratory health here.
