Some exercisers must go extra mile to make gains
It’s not often you get to cross off one of the items on the “life’s not fair” list.
But a recent study out of the University of Zurich suggests there’s hope for the unlucky few who expend the same amount of sweat as their peers, but don’t realize the same improvements in cardiovascular fitness.
It’s widely accepted among the exercise community that there’s a large variability in the range of responses to any given exercise program.
There’s less agreement, however, when it comes to the suggestion that some people are destined to be fitness failures.
While genetics has been touted as the reason why a significant percentage of the population consists of exercise nonresponders, the fact that they were born this way would be little consolation to those looking to overcome the inability to boost their fitness level.
Fortunately, several recent studies have offered a measure of hope by suggesting that the solution for exercisers who are chronically disappointed with their results is to go the extra mile.
The latest study, published by the Swiss researchers, reviewed the results of 78 healthy young men who sweated it out in one of five groups requiring either one, two, three, four or five 60-minute workouts a week for six weeks.
The exercisers alternated between continuous moderateintensity bouts of exercise and high-intensity interval workouts.
Using fitness tests administered before and after the six-week session, the researchers were able to determine who among the study subjects were non-responders — defined as anyone whose fitness improved by no more than 3.96 per cent from their baseline score.
Those who accumulated just 60 minutes of exercise a week included the largest number of non-responders, with 69 per cent failing to realize a significant boost in fitness.
Forty per cent of the exercisers who worked out twice a week (120 minutes) and 29 per cent of those who hit the gym three times a week (180 minutes) were non-responders.
There were no non-responders among those who exercised four or five times (240 or 300 minutes) a week.
Once identified, all the nonresponders started another sixweek bout of workouts, but this time they boosted their weekly exercise frequency by another two workouts. The results were encouraging.
“Cardio-respiratory nonresponse was completely eliminated following the second six-week exercise training period including two extra 60-minute sessions per week,” said the Swiss researchers.
The findings are similar to those reported by a research team at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., despite using a drastically different type of exerciser and exercise protocol.
The Queen’s study featured overweight, sedentary middleaged men and women — not young college-age males, as was the case in the Swiss study.
And instead of boosting exercise volume, they boosted exercise intensity. Yet the results were the same.
“To our knowledge, this is the first study to report that for a given amount of exercise, increasing exercise intensity abolished cardio-respiratory fitness non-response in previously sedentary adults,” said the group from Queen’s.
But despite proof that it’s possible to overcome being a non-responder, it’s clear that to do so you need to accumulate almost twice the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week, or bump up your workout intensity from low to moderately high.
And given that only 15 per cent of Canadians exercise for 150 minutes a week, it’s likely that the results of both studies won’t turn the majority of nonresponders into responders.
“A troubling observation in our study was that cardio-respiratory fitness for about 40 per cent of the participants — those who exercised for 150 minutes per week at 50 per cent of cardio-respiratory fitness or about 60 per cent of predicted maximal heart rate — did not improve,” remarked the Queen’s research team.
“This level of non-response is consistent with findings from other investigators and suggests that exercise that meets the low end of the consensus recommendation with respect to intensity may be insufficient for improving cardio-respiratory fitness for
It’s widely accepted ... that there’s a large variability in the range of responses to any given exercise program.
a substantial proportion of the adult population.”
With the realization that it takes more workouts or more intensity to reap the benefits of exercise, it’s understandable that for many non-responders this news isn’t worthy of much celebration.
But if you’re an avid exerciser who bemoans the fact that you’re a non-responder, the possibility that you can overcome genetics by adding more workouts or more intensity is good news.
But that’s not the only message that comes across loud and clear in both studies. The fact that not all people respond to exercise to the same degree is worth highlighting.
Fitness professionals and fitness fanatics alike need to appreciate that some people are fortunate enough to get fit on very little exercise, while for others it’s more of a struggle to achieve the same level of fitness.
The results of both studies are also reminders that no one exercise prescription offers all things to all people. So choose your workout routine and goals wisely, remembering that the results achieved by your friends or exercise colleagues may not mirror your own.