Skip the long workouts - doing this exercise for 3 minutes may do more for your heart health and biological age, new study finds

Regular exercise is key to staying healthy, but experts go back and forth on the type of exercise that's most efficient for our bodies - and they want to find out how little of it we can do for the most benefits possible.

A new study has found that just a few minutes of sprinting can be more beneficial for the heart than longer workouts.

The team at Rockefeller University examined how participants’ bodies responded to exercise performed at different intensities and for different amounts of time. They took blood samples before, immediately after, and three hours after two groups of participants did six 30-second cycle sprints or a moderate cycling workout for an hour and a half.

The sprints appeared to change nearly a quarter of the proteins measured in the blood immediately after exercise. This compared with just 0.25% in those cycling moderately. Moderate treadmill workouts affected more proteins than cycling, but the result was still lower than for the short sprint session.

The results, published in Cell Reports Medicine, showed that the sprints changed more than 200 metabolites (small molecules produced during and at the end of metabolism) and increased levels of key proteins involved in blood vessel growth, tissue remodelling and hormonal signalling within our bodies.

The experts then tested how human fat cells responded to the blood collected after sprinting. Using data from 53,000 participants in the UK Biobank, they found that the proteins were associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease, including type 2 diabetes. The results showed that only three proteins associated with a lower risk were affected by moderate exercise, compared with 32 changed by sprinting. Over a quarter of those were also linked to slower biological ageing.

"What's exciting here is that just a few minutes of intense exercise can trigger a significant molecular response," says one of the study’s authors, Paul Cohen. "And we still see it after eight weeks of training, which tells us this response isn't simply a product of the body struggling to keep up with unfamiliar stress. It may be that the responses we observed are intrinsic to intense exercise."

Unfortunately, the study was only done on men. The authors say future work is needed to see how it affects both sexes and people who aren’t as physically active. But the findings are further proof that you don't need hours of exercise to see benefits. Jumping on for a quick workout can have benefits. Every little helps when it comes to improving heart health.

What is sprinting?

Before you pull on your running shoes, it's important to know what counts as sprinting. To be sprinting, you need to push yourself to at least 80% of your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age).

You can judge this by feel - it should feel hard and impossible to keep up for more than a minute at best. 30 seconds is about average. Alternatively, one of the best fitness trackers will display your live heart rate and zones, so you'll know when you're in the right one.

Everyone's sprinting speed, whether on the treadmill, bike, or rowing machine, will be different. It's based on your own fitness level, so focus on your own heart rate.

If you have any joint concerns, take to the stationary bike or rower and stay away from the treadmill. Before taking off, do a gentle warm-up for at least 5 minutes and make sure you can use the machine safely.

If you are unsure of how to start sprinting safely, in the gym or outside, speak to a certified personal trainer.