Research

Energy balance

High intensity (HI) exercise yields larger improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness (peakVO2) than low-to-moderate intensity (LMI), suggesting a dose-response relationship, although the difference was not statistically significant.

If your main goal is to improve your heart and lung capacity (peakVO2), high intensity exercise is likely more effective than low-to-moderate intensity. While the study did not find a statistically significant difference, the trend favors HI. If you can tolerate it, HI may offer a slight edge for cardiorespiratory gains.

GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Improvements in peakVO2 were larger for HI than LMI exercise (β = 0.9; 95 % CI, −0.1 to 1.9), but the difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.08).
Caroline S. Kampshoff et al. · BMC Medicine · 2015

Why this rating

Large RCT, objective measure (peakVO2), but trend-level significance between groups.

Source

Randomized controlled trial of the effects of high intensity and low-to-moderate intensity exercise on physical fitness and fatigue in cancer survivors: results of the Resistance and Endurance exercise After ChemoTherapy (REACT) study

Caroline S. Kampshoff et al. · BMC Medicine · 2015

DOI 10.1186/s12916-015-0513-2

rct · n=277Cited 179×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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