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Young people frequently say that they want to exercise, but they just can’t find the time.

The solution just might be in-office interval training. That means taking part in short bursts of intense exercise — while in the office. Recent studies show that very short but intense exercise rapidly builds and maintains fitness and health, even when the workout is only a few minutes long.

Work the stairs

You can complete an excellent, effective — and very brief — workout in an office stairwell, says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Canada and an expert on interval training.

Stairwell interval training requires only one minute of strenuous exertion, he says.

For a study that he and his colleagues presented earlier this year, they asked 12 out-of-shape women in their 20s to warm up for two minutes by slowly walking up and down stairs in a campus office building. Then the women ran up the steps “as fast as safely possible,” Dr. Gibala says, for 20 seconds. They walked down and along a flat corridor for two minutes, ran back up the stairs for another 20 seconds, walked for two minutes, and ran up for a final 20 seconds. They then cooled down with three minutes of stair and corridor walking. The entire session lasted 10 minutes, which would easily fit into a lunch break. (If you do this, you may want to bring and change into workout clothing to avoid sweating in your work clothes and freshen up afterward with a bird bath in an office restroom.)