If you are not finding time to hit the gym, do not worry. Researchers have found that working out at home not only saves your time, cost and access but also increases adherence.

The study, published in The Journal of Physiology, investigated a home-based high-intensity interval training (Home-HIT) programme and studied its benefits for clinically obese individuals with an elevated risk of heart disease.

The research team were interested in whether Home-HIT is a time-efficient strategy that helps to reduce other common exercise barriers such as difficulty with access to exercise facilities due to travel time and cost.

“An exercise regimen such as Home-HIT that reduces barriers to exercise such as time, cost, and access, and increases adherence in previously inactive individuals gives people a more attainable exercise goal and thus could help improve the health of countless individuals,” said study author Sam Scott from Liverpool John Moores University.

For the study, 32 obese people completed a 12-week exercise programme. A range of health markers were measured in these participants, including body composition, cardiovascular disease risk and the ability to regulate glucose.

They were categorised in three groups — those who did supervised, lab-based cycling HIT programme; those who did UK government-recommended 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise; and those who did home-based HIT programme of simple body weight exercises suitable for people with low fitness and low mobility and performed without equipment.

The researchers found that home-based HIT was as effective as both the government-recommended 150-minute exercise and the supervised, lab-based HIT programme for improving fitness in obese individuals.