Research

Hormonal

In healthy, trained men, a single exercise session expending 1,100 kcal or more at 70% VO2max significantly increases HDL-C concentrations 24 hours post-exercise, whereas sessions expending 800 kcal do not.

If you are a trained male looking to boost your HDL cholesterol, a single run burning 1,100 calories at 70% of your max effort will significantly raise your HDL levels the next day. A shorter run (800 calories) may lower triglycerides but won't significantly raise HDL. Aim for the higher energy expenditure to get the HDL benefit.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
These data indicate that, in healthy, trained men, 1,100 kcal of energy expenditure are necessary to elicit increased HDL-C concentrations.
Michael A. Ferguson et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 1998

Why this rating

Randomized crossover design with healthy, trained subjects, though small sample size (n=11).

Source

Effects of four different single exercise sessions on lipids, lipoproteins, and lipoprotein lipase

Michael A. Ferguson et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 1998

DOI 10.1152/jappl.1998.85.3.1169

crossover · n=11Cited 246×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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