Effect of Sprint Interval Training Frequency on Improvements in Fitness

Wilfrid Laurier University100 enrolled

Overview

The goal of this study is to learn how the number of weekly exercise sessions affects improvements in fitness in healthy university aged students. The main question it aims to answer is how training frequency affects improvements in fitness. Participants will complete a pre-testing sessions to assess fitness level and sprint performance. Following this participants are assigned to one of four groups. A group that exercises 2 days a week, a group that trains 3 days a week, a group that trains 4 days a week, or a no-exercise control group. Participants in this group will not complete any training and allow the researchers to compare the exercise groups to a group that didn't train. Each participant will train for 4 weeks. During each training session participants will complete 4-6 30 second all-out sprints with 4 minutes of rest between each. Participants will complete the same tests they did during the pre-testing session following the 4 weeks of training to see how frequency affects improvements.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

100

Conditions

Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Interventions

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsMax age: 35 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Recreationally active: exercising at least 2-3 days per week and not currently involved in, or had been involved in a systematic training program for at least 3 months prior to data collection. * Safe to become physically active based on the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology - Get Active Questionnaire. Exclusion Criteria: * Smoking * Consuming supplements known to affect metabolism (e.g., creatine, carnitine, nitric oxide, brain chain amino acids). * Failure to meet inclusion criteria

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Cardiorespiratory fitness

Cardiorespiratory fitness will be assessed through the measurement of maximal oxygen consumption. This will be determined using an incremental exercise test to volitional fatigue on a treadmill. A metabolic cart will be used to assess oxygen consumption using indirect calorimetry

Time frame: This will be assessed before and after 4 weeks of training (or control).

Secondary Outcomes

Anaerobic performance

Anaerobic performance will be assessed during one 30 second "all-out" sprint completed on a self-propelled treadmill. Participants will be instructed to run as fast and as hard as they can for the entire 30 seconds. Speed will be recorded during this sprint and used to determine, peak, average, and minimum speed, as well as fatigue index.