A hot new type of workout you can do in under 10 minutes is gaining traction, and new research suggests it might produce better results

• A hot new type of workout called high intensity interval training (HIIT) promises the benefits of a traditional workout in under 10 minutes.
• Although it sounds like hype, a growing body of research suggests this may be one of the best ways to work out.
• We tried one type of HIIT plan called the 7-minute workout, and came away with some surprising results.

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When I first heard about a fitness routine that promises the heart-pumping benefits of a sweaty bike ride in seven minutes, I brushed it off as little more than hype.

But after trying out an app called the 7-minute workout, I learned I'd been wrong. Turns out it's entirely possible to get the benefits of a traditional hour-long workout in much less time - if you're following a relatively recent approach called high intensity interval training, or HIIT. The app I tried, which was designed by Johnson & Johnson exercise physiologist Chris Jordan, is just one approach to this type of training.

As opposed to regular exercise, which typically involves spending 45-60 minutes cycling or running then another 20 minutes or so doing muscle-building activities like planks or sit-ups, HIIT compresses all that effort into a narrow time frame of 7-15 minutes.

In that window, you put your all into a series of short bursts of movement - typically sit-ups, jumping jacks, or planks - and spend 30 to 45 seconds on each one. After each brief interval, you rest briefly to catch your breath and then move on immediately to the next exercise. At the end of the workout, your whole body should feel it.

Several recent studies suggest this regimen may confer health benefits that are at least equivalent if not superior to traditional exercise. For a study published in the the journal Certified and sponsored by the nonprofit American Council of Exercise, a group of 48 men and women aged 21 to 59 were randomly assigned to follow either a HIIT training program or traditional workout plan.

After six weeks, people doing the HIIT regimen saw greater or equal gains in several measures of heart health and muscle tone than the traditional exercisers. Those benefits also cropped up sooner in the folks on the HIIT plan - in some cases by as much as three weeks earlier.

That's a significant finding, especially considering how many people give up on a workout plan if they fail to see or feel results quickly.

Less may be more when it comes to fitness

Jordan, the creator of the Johnson & Johnson official 7-minute workout app, is convinced that less is more when it comes to fitness.

Interval training "can provide similar or greater benefits in less time than traditional longer, moderate-intensity workouts," he told Business Insider in April.

Jordan isn't the first exercise scientist to recognize this.

A handful of recent studies comparing traditional workouts with HIIT-style regimens has come to similar conclusions: the interval training plans are either better than or equal to regular exercise.

Tabata training, a HIIT workout named after the Japanese fitness researcher Izumi Tabata, is made up of several four-minute exercises. Tabata and his team at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports became some of HIIT's pioneers after publishing a 1996 study suggesting that short bursts of intense strength training could have better results than a traditional workout.

A study published in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine in 2012 compared a group of runners who did traditional, continuous runs with those who did interval training. The researchers found that both groups achieved nearly the same results, but those in the HIIT group had superior peak oxygen uptake, an important measure of endurance.

Those findings were bolstered in 2013, when researchers published a review of studies in the International Journal of Cardiology. They looked at a total of nearly 500 participants who performed either regular exercise or interval training, and found that the people who did interval training had better peak oxygen uptake. Participants saw roughly equivalent benefits in terms of heart health.

A 2014 study in the journal Diabetologia found that doing walking interval training - an hour of alternating between three minutes of brisk walking and three minutes of stopping - helped people with diabetes control their blood-sugar levels far better than simply walking at the same pace continuously.

Whatever your preferred workout, the best way to ensure your body and mind experience positive results is to commit to doing it regularly.

"Plan ahead, schedule, the most important thing is to do it on a consistent basis," Jordan said.