Do you want to get fit but find it hard to make time for exercise?

Researchers are looking for sedentary volunteers to take part in a study into a time-efficient exercise tool called HIT — High Intensity Training. The training programme is part of Metapredict, a multi-disciplinary European health project which aims to develop individualised lifestyle strategies to help fight or prevent metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Each volunteer will undergo health screening before they start and have a HIT schedule devised so they work to just below their own maximum level of intensity.

The University is one of six sites across Europe and Canada collaborating on this research project.

Beth Phillips, a research associate in the School of Biomedical Sciences, said: “The hope is that we can show people don’t have to conform to the traditional guidelines of 60 minutes a day of moderate intensity exercise, which some people say they simply don’t have the time to do. If we can prove that seven minutes of high intensity exercise in a 15-minute session three times a week is enough then most people can fit that into their daily lives.”

The Nottingham research is led by Dr Phil Atherton, Associate Professor in the School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health in Derby and Professor Paul Greenhaff in the School of Biomedical Sciences.

Dr Atherton said: “The clinical contribution from the University — training 20% of all the Metapredict cohort — is crucial for trialing the utility of HIT exercise on a large scale and for developing “predictors” of the health benefits of exercise, which in future could be used for assessing “health risk” and/or assigning personalised exercise and medication-based interventions.”

Volunteers need to be aged 18 to 50 with a BMI of over 27, who lead a sedentary lifestyle and can find time to do seven-minute bursts of high intensity exercise in a 15-minute session, three times a week for six weeks. The training sessions will be in Nottingham. Contact Beth Phillips on 0115 823 0202 or email: beth.phillips@nottingham.ac.uk.