Continuing from my last post, it appears that longer rest periods between sprints burns more total calories compared to short rest periods (for the same number of sprints).
The "Run Now, Pay Later" paper I cited also shows how the evolutionary function of the longer rest periods is to increase endurance. With longer rest periods between high-intensity efforts, an organism can continue to cover more distance chasing after prey. With shorter rest periods, an organism eventually exhausts itself and is unable to continue.
For example, how long can a person perform a 20 second sprint, followed by a 10 second rest (the Tabata protocol) continually? Not too long, just a few minutes. Yet how long can a person sprint 20 seconds, rest a few minutes, and then continue? A fairly long time - hours most likely. And this longer pursuit will end up burning more total calories than a quick workout with short rest periods.
In summary, it appears that short, high-intensity efforts with long rest periods is very "costly" to an organism; that is, it's very expense metabolically because it burns many calories. If a person is trying to lose fat, then this type of protocol should be the best choice due to the large energy expenditure.
