Effects of two forms of school-based high-intensity interval training on body fat, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness in adolescents: randomized control trial with eight-week follow-up-the PEER-HEART study
Question
Do two school-based HIIT formats improve body fat, blood pressure, and cardiorespiratory fitness in adolescents, and are effects maintained after 8 weeks?
Summary
This school randomized trial compared two 8-week PE-class HIIT variants in adolescents: bodyweight resistance-style HIIT and plyometric HIIT. Both variants used short Tabata-style rounds and were associated with favorable changes in body fat, blood pressure, and VO2max that were maintained 8 weeks later, though many between-group post-test contrasts were small or not significant.
Methodology
- Healthy first-year high-school adolescents
- 307 participants.
- Bodyweight resistance or plyometric exercises.
- Work intervals: 20 seconds.
- Recovery: 10 seconds.
- Intensity: All-out, target >=75% HRmax.
- 10-minute warm-up plus Tabata rounds.
- 2 sessions/week.
- 8 weeks.
- School-based randomized controlled trial
- Body fat, Blood pressure, Cardiorespiratory fitness, and Safety were tracked.
Outcomes
Health markers
Body fat, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and VO2max changed favorably across the intervention period.
Significant time x variant x group interactions with small effects.
Follow-up
Improvements were generally maintained at the 8-week follow-up.
No significant post-intervention to follow-up deterioration was reported (p>0.05).
Safety
No adverse effects were observed.
Descriptive safety reporting.
Insights
- A 20:10 Tabata format with round-count progression is highly translatable to bodyweight app programming.
- Heart-rate targets can be used to verify that short sessions are actually vigorous.
- Low-impact alternatives are needed for users who should avoid plyometrics.
Limitations
- Adolescent school sample.
- Supervised PE context.
- Small effects and some non-significant post hoc contrasts.
- Low-attendance participants were excluded from final analysis.
Safety
- No adverse effects were observed.
- Students with contraindications to exercise were excluded.