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Hourly 4-second sprints prevent impairment of postprandial fat metabolism

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Re: Hourly 4-second sprints prevent impairment of postprandial fat metabolism

#4

"Four men and four women participated in two trials" I'm not a medical researcher; is this a normal size for a study?

It's enough for such a large effect, but obviously it doesn't tell us anything about the long-term impact of trying it as a lifestyle.

Re: Hourly 4-second sprints prevent impairment of postprandial fat metabolism

#6

Ok 4s/hour. 8 hours/day of sitting. So 32s day of total exercise!?! Still probably will not do it.

That is also how I initially read it, but the paper states that there were 5 sprints per hours for a total of 160 seconds a day.

From the paper:

> i.e.; 4-s x 5 per h x 8-h = 160-s per day

Re: Hourly 4-second sprints prevent impairment of postprandial fat metabolism

#7

"Four men and four women participated in two trials" I'm not a medical researcher; is this a normal size for a study?

Say you are trying to distinguish between a placebo and a cyanide pill; test subjects are young rats (base rate of death extremely low). How large of a sample size do you need? I think one control, one test subject is enough to be certain, because the base rate of death is insanely low, when measured on a per-minute basis.

Sample sizes can be small and still very significant when the effect is large.

Re: Hourly 4-second sprints prevent impairment of postprandial fat metabolism

#8
post #4

"Four men and four women participated in two trials" I'm not a medical researcher; is this a normal size for a study?

It's enough for such a large effect, but obviously it doesn't tell us anything about the long-term impact of trying it as a lifestyle.

There are two problems: "No differences (p>0.05) between interventions were found for plasma insulin or glucose AUC." That can very, very much be explained by lack of power. But the main problem is that a group of 8 people has a very low probability of generalizing across the population. And of course, very few people sit 8 hours without moving.

That said, it's more than promising enough for further research.

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