High-intensity cycling in very short bursts can lead to performance and health benefits in just 10 minutes a day, according to a new study to be presented virtually this week at the American Physiological Society’s (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2021.

Young adult volunteers participated in high-intensity cycling three times a week for eight weeks. They cycled at maximum effort for four seconds and rested for 15 to 30 seconds before beginning another four-second sprint. Each sprint-rest bout was repeated up to 30 times in a single workout session, for a total of 10 minutes.

By the end of the trial period, the participants had increased their maximum oxygen consumption, which indicates an improvement of aerobic exercise endurance. Their anaerobic power (strength) and total blood volume increased as well. Both athletic performance and cardiovascular health can improve with a boost in blood volume, explained Remzi Satiroglu, MS, first author of the study from the University of Texas at Austin.

These results may encourage people to exercise because the total workout time is very short, Satiroglu explained. “[People] often claim they don’t have enough time to squeeze [exercise] in. We offer people a workout that only take 10 minutes total and shows results when completed three times per week,” he said.