I caught part of it on npr, but I already saw it twice on the internet. Some of the commentary I saw (and comments from UK friends) seemed to imply that the take home message was that one can get all the benefit they need from short hiit workouts. For some reason, I didn't get that impression. As I recall, the presenter tested as a "non-responder" to exercise meaning that his vo2max would not improve through aerobic exercise. They said that about 20% of the population falls into this category (I think it was 20%, this was the part that I caught the other night). So for this significant minority group of "non-responders" aerobic exercise would not improve their lung capacity and possibly not their aerobic fitness. He also had a family history of issues, I think glucose related? So they were testing whether he could improve his insulin sensitivity glucose levels with short all-out exercise. For him, that improved his blood work. So most of the benefit he could personally expect from cardio he could achieve in those short, intense sessions and free his time up for other things especially if his general activity was pretty high. I don't think the show really addressed whether someone like him would have other benefits from exercise like improved muscle strength, stamina, flexibility, etc and it really only discussed the benefit of aerobic exercise and NEAT.
I found it really fascinating (and his other show on Fasting was interesting too, I need to catch the one on digestion as I haven't seen that one yet). I think the take-home message was in part that one set of guidelines really doesn't equally benefit everyone and different people respond to exercise in different ways. I hope he does more of these programs.
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