Low intensity exercise doesn't provide long term benefit

The other poster I presented at the Be Active conference was about long term cardiorespiratory benefits of participating in my research. People were randomized to low or high intensity exercise. For aerobic exercise, it ended up only being low versus moderate intensity exercise (60% vs 70% max) because the high intensity group didn't push it as hard as they were supposed to. Therefore, both groups improved the same amount during the intervention. However, at the end of the intervention, only the higher assigned group maintained their fitness, while the low intensity group returned to baseline levels. This indicates that 70% of max is the minimum required to make long term aerobic fitness improvements. You can see the poster after the jump.