Research

Mixed

Six weeks of either sprint interval or endurance training does not significantly alter central (carotid) artery distensibility in healthy young adults.

Don't expect short-term exercise to change your central artery stiffness if you are already young and healthy. Your arteries are likely already flexible. Focus on peripheral health (legs) which does improve with training.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Carotid artery distensibility was not statistically altered by training (P > 0.29) in either group.
Mark Rakobowchuk et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 2008

Why this rating

Same RCT design as N1; robust for the specific population studied.

Source

Sprint interval and traditional endurance training induce similar improvements in peripheral arterial stiffness and flow-mediated dilation in healthy humans

Mark Rakobowchuk et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 2008

DOI 10.1152/ajpregu.00069.2008

rct · n=20Cited 336×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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