This article was taken from the February 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
The Centre for Health and Human Performance (CHHP), a London clinic, has worked with some of the world's top athletes, including Team GB Boxing.
Founded in 2007 by high-altitude medic Jack Kreindler and Greg Whyte, a professor of sports science at Liverpool John Moores and a former modern pentathlete who has competed in two Olympic Games, CHHP claims it can compress the benefits of a full hour's intense workout into a third of that time.
The programme is based on high intensity interval training (HIIT). "Most people go to the gym just to move and burn calories," says Kreindler. "But they don't actually increase the mitochondrial function inside their muscles, the number of little furnaces that burn energy in the muscle cells."
CHHP's HIIT uses German-made Milon machines. These load the muscles asymmetrically, varying resistance between concentric and eccentric loading: so, as you push out on a chest press, the electronic resistance could be set to double that of your pulling force. "Within ten reps, you can stress your muscles to the equivalent of 30 reps," says Kreindler.
HOW WE TESTED
Three of WIRED's staff endured 18-minute sessions three times a week for six weeks at the Centre for Health and Human Performance, based in London's Harley Street. Total body and fat measurements were taken before and after using an InBody 720 body composition analyser. In addition, cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CEPT) was conducted before the regime. This determines how the cardiovascular and respitory system respond to exercise, and gave a data set for each WIRED staff member on how that individual's body responds to exercise in its current state of fitness. This was then applied to the bespoke training programmes to ensure each workout was aimed at the most effective level.
JOÃO
science editor
Weight loss: 3.1kg
Skeletal muscle mass increase: 1kg
Fat loss: 4.4kg
Percent body fat decrease: 4.7% "I found the gym sessions physically very demanding in terms of sustained effort of strength and the five-minute cardio bursts with resistance -- and no breaks. Psychologically, however, I always felt motivated. There was no cognitive overload: all the sessions were planned out and the automatic Milon machines let us focus on just exercising."
JEREMY
product editor
Weight loss: 0.8kg
Skeletal muslce mass incr: 0.5kg
Fat loss: 1.7kg
Percent body fat decrease: 1.7% "The initial fitness assessment was one of the toughest exercise routines that I have done. But then I was surprised at how the regular gym sessions were, on the whole, not as strenuous as I thought they would be. This may have been because the Milon machines were targeting muscle groups in the most efficient way and so I was not over-exerting myself to achieve results."
MADHUMITA
associate editor
Weight loss: 0kg
Skeletal muscle mass incr: 0.5kg
Fat loss: 0.6g
Percent body fat decrease: 1.5% "I found the fitness sessions moderately demanding, but very effective. The short length of the sessions meant that it was easy to push myself, even when exhausted. I achieved my goal to lose no weight, but reduce body fat and gain skeletal muscle mass. I also found the discussion with Jack Kreindler very helpful -- he helped me adapt my diet to account for any nutritional deficiencies."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
