Browse the evidence

Sprint Interval Training (SIT) consisting of 3 minutes of intense intermittent exercise per week improves insulin sensitivity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and skeletal muscle mitochondrial content to the same extent as 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in previously inactive men.

If you are sedentary and struggle to find time for exercise, try Sprint Interval Training. Perform three 20-second 'all-out' cycling sprints per session, with 2 minutes of easy cycling in between, three times a week. This 10-minute session is as effective as 150 minutes of moderate jogging for improving your heart health, insulin sensitivity, and muscle energy capacity.

Postmenopausal women who lose weight (defined as a decrease of at least 5% of body weight) after having gained weight during adulthood experience a significantly reduced risk of postmenopausal breast cancer compared to women who maintain a pattern of continuous weight gain.

If you are a postmenopausal woman who has gained weight in your 30s or later, losing at least 5% of your body weight can significantly lower your risk of breast cancer. You do not need to return to your teenage weight; even a modest reduction from your current higher weight provides substantial protection compared to continuing to gain weight. Focus on achieving and maintaining this loss, as the study indicates that weight loss, regardless of when it occurred in adulthood, is beneficial.

Adherence to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with virgin olive oil or mixed nuts significantly reduces serum and cellular inflammatory biomarkers (including CRP, IL-6, and adhesion molecules) in high-risk cardiovascular patients compared to a low-fat diet.

To lower inflammation and heart disease risk, replace your current diet with a Mediterranean-style pattern. Specifically, add extra virgin olive oil as your main cooking fat (aiming for roughly a liter per week) or eat a handful of mixed nuts (30-60 grams) daily. Do not restrict salt or calories strictly, as the study showed benefits even without these restrictions. This approach is superior to standard low-fat diets for reducing inflammatory markers in high-risk individuals.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle (non-smoking, regular physical activity, healthy diet, moderate alcohol) significantly increases life expectancy in individuals with multimorbidity, with benefits comparable to those without chronic conditions.

If you have multiple chronic conditions, adopting a healthy lifestyle (not smoking, eating 5+ portions of fruit/veg daily, exercising regularly, and drinking moderately) can still significantly extend your life expectancy, adding up to 6-7 years compared to an unhealthy lifestyle. It is never too late to benefit from these changes.

High-intensity intermittent exercise training induces specific metabolic and structural adaptations, including increased oxidative enzyme activity and faster phosphocreatine resynthesis rates, which significantly enhance fatigue resistance during repeated high-intensity efforts.

To improve your ability to sustain high-intensity efforts, incorporate high-intensity intermittent training into your routine. This type of training, involving short bursts of intense activity with brief recovery, can enhance your muscle's oxidative capacity and phosphocreatine resynthesis rate, leading to better fatigue resistance.

Endurance training enhances the contribution of oxidative metabolism to energy supply during high-intensity exercise, leading to slower rates of fatigue compared to power-trained or untrained individuals.

If you engage in high-intensity exercise, incorporating endurance training can improve your aerobic contribution to energy supply, helping you resist fatigue better during repeated high-intensity efforts.

Interval-walking training (IWT) significantly improves aerobic fitness (VO2max), reduces body fat and visceral adiposity, and lowers glycemic variability (mean and maximum CGM glucose) in type 2 diabetic patients compared to continuous walking (CWT) when energy expenditure is matched.

If you have type 2 diabetes, try interval walking instead of just steady walking. Use a device that tells you when to walk fast and when to walk slow. Do this 5 times a week for an hour. This approach improves your heart health, helps you lose belly fat, and keeps your blood sugar levels more stable than just walking at a constant moderate pace, even if you burn the same number of calories.

African American women with obesity and low insulin sensitivity lose significantly more fat mass and maintain higher total energy expenditure when following a low-carbohydrate diet compared to a low-fat diet.

If you are an African American woman with obesity and have struggled to lose weight on standard low-fat diets, switching to a low-carbohydrate approach (around 20% carbs, 55% fat) may help you lose more fat and keep your metabolism higher. This benefit is specifically linked to having lower insulin sensitivity, which is common in this demographic. Focus on whole foods, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats while maintaining a caloric deficit.

Maximal power output in the upper extremity is optimized at loads of 30-45% of one-repetition maximum (1RM), whereas maximal power in the lower extremity is optimized at loads of 60-70% of 1RM.

To maximize power, do not use the same weight for all exercises. For upper body movements like bench press, use lighter loads (30-45% of your max) and move them explosively. For lower body movements like squats, use heavier loads (60-70% of your max) to generate peak power. Adjusting the load to the specific muscle group's mechanics is critical for power development.

Intensive lifestyle modification (diet and exercise) is the most effective intervention for preventing type 2 diabetes in women with PCOS who have impaired glucose tolerance, outperforming pharmacological agents like metformin.

If you have PCOS and impaired glucose tolerance, prioritize lifestyle changes over medication. Aim to lose 5-7% of your body weight through a healthy, low-fat diet and at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. This approach is more effective at preventing diabetes than taking metformin alone. Metformin may be considered if lifestyle changes are insufficient, but lifestyle is the primary treatment.

Ingesting 9 mg/kg of caffeine one hour before prolonged endurance exercise significantly increases time to exhaustion in trained runners.

If you are a trained runner, taking 9 mg of caffeine per kg of body weight one hour before your event can significantly extend how long you can exercise. For a 70 kg person, this is 630 mg. Ensure you have abstained from caffeine for 48 hours prior to maximize the effect, and consume a high-carbohydrate diet as usual.

Resistance training reduces body fat and increases basal metabolic rate, with high-volume workouts using large muscle masses and short rest periods being most conducive to fat loss.

To lose fat with resistance training, focus on high-volume workouts that use large muscle groups (like squats or deadlifts) and keep rest periods short. This approach maximizes energy expenditure and metabolic rate increases, helping you reduce body fat more effectively than low-volume or long-rest routines.

Progressive resistance training is an effective nonpharmacologic intervention that slightly reduces resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure in hypertensive and nonhypertensive individuals.

If you have high blood pressure, adding progressive resistance training to your routine can help lower your resting blood pressure. This reduction, while small, shifts your blood pressure from the high-normal category to the normal category, reducing your risk of stroke and heart disease.

Resistance training improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, and modifying body composition through resistance training can delay the onset of insulin resistance.

To improve your blood sugar control, include resistance training in your routine. It improves glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity, but these benefits fade within 72 hours if you stop exercising, so consistency is key.

Resistance training relieves low back pain by increasing the strength and cross-sectional area of vertebral musculature, maintaining muscle balance.

If you have chronic low back pain, specific resistance training focusing on lumbar extension with a stabilized pelvis can significantly reduce your pain. It strengthens the muscles supporting your spine, improving balance and endurance, and relieving symptoms.

Lifestyle interventions (combining physical activity and sedentary behavior reduction with diet) significantly reduce total sedentary time in adults by approximately 24 minutes per day, with moderate quality evidence.

To reduce your sitting time, you need a specific strategy to break up sitting, not just exercise. Lifestyle programs that combine diet, exercise, and specific instructions to stand/move more are effective, reducing sitting by about 24 minutes a day. Don't assume your workout covers your sitting time; actively break up long periods of sitting.

Combination exercise (15 min aerobic + 15 min resistance, 5 days/week for 12 weeks) produces significantly greater reductions in body weight, total body fat, and android (abdominal) fat compared to resistance training alone or no exercise in overweight and obese adults.

If you are overweight or obese, doing 30 minutes of mixed exercise five days a week is more effective for losing fat and weight than doing just resistance or just cardio. Split your 30 minutes: 15 minutes of walking/cycling at a moderate pace (where you can talk but not sing) followed immediately by 15 minutes of weight training (using weights that feel heavy by the 10th rep). This approach targets both fat loss and heart health more effectively than sticking to just one type of exercise.

Combination exercise significantly improves cardio-respiratory fitness (VO2max) by 13.3% compared to no exercise, whereas aerobic or resistance training alone did not show statistically significant improvements in this specific 12-week moderate-intensity protocol.

To improve your heart's pumping efficiency (VO2max), combining 15 minutes of moderate cardio with 15 minutes of weight training five days a week is more effective than doing just cardio or just weights for 30 minutes. This approach leverages both systems to boost fitness faster.

Lifestyle interventions, specifically calorie-restricted diets combined with at least 150 minutes of weekly aerobic exercise, are the first-line treatment for improving insulin sensitivity in women with PCOS.

Start with lifestyle changes before medication. Focus on eating fewer calories and aiming for 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week, ensuring at least 90 minutes are vigorous. Prioritize sleep and mental health, as these support metabolic health. If lifestyle changes are too difficult to sustain alone, consider adding insulin-sensitizing drugs like Metformin as a chronic treatment option.

Ketogenic diets result in significantly greater weight loss and improvements in metabolic markers (insulin, HbA1c) compared to standard low-fat or non-ketogenic calorie-restricted diets in overweight or obese individuals, particularly those with type 2 diabetes.

If you are overweight or have Type 2 Diabetes, a ketogenic diet (very low carb, moderate protein, high fat) is likely to produce faster and more significant weight loss and metabolic improvements than a standard low-fat diet. This is driven by lower insulin levels, which allows your body to access fat stores more easily.

8 to 12 weeks of aerobic high-intensity running training (>85% HRmax) improves VO2max (5-11%), running economy (3-7%), and yo-yo intermittent recovery test performance (13%) in football players.

To improve your fitness for football, incorporate 8-12 weeks of high-intensity running training twice a week. Aim for intensities above 85% of your maximum heart rate, using intervals like 4 minutes of running followed by 3 minutes of active recovery. This will boost your VO2max and your ability to recover between high-intensity efforts.

Speed-endurance training (repeated sprints) improves football-specific endurance (YYIR test 22-28%) and repeated sprint ability (~2%) more effectively than aerobic high-intensity training alone.

To improve your ability to perform repeated high-intensity efforts, include speed-endurance training in your regimen. Perform repeated sprints (e.g., 40m shuttle sprints) with short rest periods, twice a week for 8-10 weeks. This will significantly boost your football-specific endurance and repeated sprint ability.

Higher leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) is longitudinally associated with better health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in community-dwelling older adults, specifically improving physical functioning, bodily pain, vitality, social functioning, emotional role, and mental health.

For older adults, increasing leisure-time physical activity (like walking, gardening, or swimming) and reducing sitting time are both independently linked to better quality of life. You do not need to perform vigorous exercise to see benefits; replacing time spent sitting with light physical activity (even just one hour a day) can lead to clinically relevant improvements in physical functioning, pain, vitality, and mental health.

Replacing sedentary behavior with physical activity (isotemporal substitution) improves HRQoL, with light physical activity being sufficient for most dimensions of quality of life.

You can improve your quality of life by swapping sitting time for movement, without needing extra time. Replacing just one hour of sitting with one hour of light activity (like walking or gardening) daily leads to significant improvements in physical function, pain, and mental health. You do not need to do vigorous exercise to get these benefits.