An additional unclear thing about HIIT is that we don’t really know with confidence that VO2max causally improves the things we “really” care about. I mean… as you say, any exercise that improves VO2max almost certainly improves health (a lot), but it’s entirely possible that exercise program A might improve VO2max slightly less than exercise program B and yet exercise program A might be better for health.
(Totally endorse your logic in the last paragraph BTW. I think, if anything, this strengthens that argument?)
An additional unclear thing about HIIT is that we don’t really know with confidence that VO2max causally improves the things we “really” care about. I mean… as you say, any exercise that improves VO2max almost certainly improves health (a lot), but it’s entirely possible that exercise program A might improve VO2max slightly less than exercise program B and yet exercise program A might be better for health.
(Totally endorse your logic in the last paragraph BTW. I think, if anything, this strengthens that argument?)