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Scientists Study How Little Exercise You Need
Hugh Pickens writes "Millions of Americans don't engage in much exercise, if they complete any at all and asked why, a majority of respondents, in survey after survey, say, 'I don't have time.' Now Gretchen Reynolds reports that instead of wondering just how much exercise people really need in order to gain health and fitness, a group of scientists in Canada are turning that issue on its head and asking, how little exercise do we need to maintain fitness and the answer appears to be, a lot less than most of us think — provided we're willing to work a bit. Most people have heard of intervals, or repeated, short, sharp bursts of strenuous activity, interspersed with rest periods. Almost all competitive athletes strategically employ a session or two of interval training every week to improve their speed and endurance. Researchers have developed a version of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) that involves one minute of strenuous effort, at about 90 percent of a person's maximum heart rate (which most of us can estimate, very roughly, by subtracting our age from 220), followed by one minute of easy recovery. The effort and recovery are repeated 10 times, for a total of 20 minutes and the interval training is performed twice a week. Despite the small time commitment of this modified HIIT program, after several weeks of practicing it, both the unfit volunteers and the cardiac patients showed significant improvements in their health and fitness. 'A growing body of evidence demonstrates that high-intensity interval training can serve as an effective alternate to traditional endurance-based training, inducing similar or even superior physiological adaptations in healthy individuals and diseased populations, at least when compared on a matched-work basis.'"
Works wonders if your employer has an onsite gym. Duck in at random intervals throughout the day, bang out 100 leg presses, 15 heavyweight curls each arm, 30 heavyweight dumbell presses, 40 reps of wrist curls with 40-pound dumbbells each arm. Feels good, man, even on a diet of beer and Mexican food.
The intervals meaning that interruption to your routine is minimal since you're not doing it all at once when everybody else is using the gym, like at lunchtimes or after work.
"Now Gretchen Reynolds reports that instead of wondering just how much exercise people really need in order to gain health and fitness, a group of scientists in Canada are turning that issue on its head and asking, how little exercise do we need to maintain fitness"
How is that 'turning the issue on its head'? It seems to me more like a very minor rephrasing of the question which ultimately makes no difference at all.
It sounds like this regimen could be incorporated into sex, or masturbation if you're creative.
preemptive "slashdot readers don't have sex, lol"
I've made a point of exercising a lot lately... and I've found that my endurance has gone up considerably since I started, but I'm just as fat as I ever was. At least I'm not gaining any more weight... still undesirably obese though.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Define Fitness
Defined:
Despite these differences, both protocols induced similar increases (P < 0.05) in mitochondrial markers for skeletal muscle CHO (pyruvate dehydrogenase E1alpha protein content) and lipid oxidation (3-hydroxyacyl CoA dehydrogenase maximal activity) and protein content of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator-1alpha. Glycogen and phosphocreatine utilization during exercise were reduced after training, and calculated rates of whole-body CHO and lipid oxidation were decreased and increased, respectively, with no differences between groups (all main effects, P < 0.05).
Refrigerator door pull:
1. Stand with your feet evenly in front of the icebox. Pull door open, check whats inside. Close the door.
2. Pull open, retrieve one of the 6pack. Close door.
3. Pull open, get salsa. Close door.
4. Pull open, get lime. Close door.
5. When it's time for next bottle/can, repeat #2.
Sixteen ounce wrist curls:
1. Pop open that beer/soda/caffeinated drink. 6 reps, one for each gulp, right wrist first.
2. Do 6 reps for left wrist as well.
Use your imagination, and your regular work area could be a workout area as well. Practice saying, "Yeah, I work out" with the intensity showing in your eyes.
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Not unless you have a serious heart condition. It is impossible for a healthy person (no matter how unfit) to injure his heart by working it hard.
Interval training is excellent. I do roughly what the article describes every other day (on the other days I just run two miles). This keeps my blood pressure below 120 and my resting heart rate in the low fifties.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
> Because I think it's boring.
You'll find diabetes and heart disease boring as well. But don't worry: Alzheimer's will help you forget the boredom.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The best way, currently known, to slow age-related cognitive decline is exercise because it produces Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor.
But did TFA even mention BDNF?
nnnnnnaaaaaaaaOOOOOOOOOOHHHHhhhhhh
Maybe the author should exercise more.
Seastead this.
Maybe it is true that 10x1 min high-intensity training is just as good as 20, 30 or even 40 minutes of easier training.
But for most people I am not sure if it is any more fun or easier to commit to.
As a pretty serious long distance runner (running Boston Marathon this spring), I don't doubt that intervals can make me faster and I will do some before the race, but that is easily the worst part of my training. It is just very unpleasant to run at >90% of max capacity. I even prefer 15 mile long runs over intervals.
No it won't. In fact, as you get fit your max HR may decrease. However, you will be able sustain it much longer. Your heart will become stronger, will move more blood per stroke, and your circulatory resistance will decrease. Your resting HR (and your blood pressure) will drop substantially so that your ratio of max HR to resting HR will increase even if your max HR decreases.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You have, unironically, used the term "Bro" on Slashdot. Guards!
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Dr Ken Cooper - the guy who invented aerobics and published back in the 1970s - was answering this question more or less. He was a US Air Force doctor and had access to thousands of subjects for testing. He wanted to answer the question: "How much exercise do I *need* to do, when a doctor tells me to get `more' exercise?"
Basically, after a 13 week conditioning program of gradually increasing exersion, his program settles down into walking 4 miles in 55 minutes, three times a week. This is not that burdensome. And there are many alternatives to walking: swimming, running/jogging, cycling, playing various vigorous sports like squash, etc. He worked out age and activity based tables for mixing and matching various activities to achieve the weekly exercise goal - all based on research into basic aerobic fitness.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Not a whole lot more to say on the subject. Do some swings and get-ups once or twice a day, and you'll be fit and trim. Unless you eat trash and guzzle carbonated sugar water all day. In which case, you're fucked no matter what you do.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
The more fit you are, the harder it becomes to approach your max heart rate. Your max doesn't get higher.
Slow burn is where to raise and lower a weight very slowly (about one rep every 20-30 seconds), while maintaining proper form. The idea is that you can't unconsciously use momentum and leverage to help you lift the weight, hence you will reach full fatigue faster than the standard quick rep method. Since you'll theoretically get a full workout in about 2/3rds the time, you spend less time in the workout overall.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
I'm having the flu right now, and yet, my buddies and I just had an intense workout out for over an hour at the gym, and I didn't even feel tired.
I'm glad you feel so healthy, but please stay away from the gym while you're coughing, sneezing, or barfing.
90% heart rate pretty much just means "go flat out." So, one minute flat out, one minute rest. Repeat 10 times. I can tell you right now that this will make those 20 minutes of exercise about as unpleasant as they could be. Concentrating your exercise like this maximizes the gap between your normal level of activity (none) and your exercise. I'm surprised it doesn't cause heart attacks, but far be it from me to offer up intuition against data.
and therein lies the problem.
HIIT has actually been around and been discussed in running groups for a number of years. Lest you think I am pulling this from where the sun doesn't shine, I write this from some personal experience; I am an experienced ultramarathoner (six 50 milers). HIIT is extremely difficult for "normal" people to do as an ongoing exercise program.
The great majority of Americans are simply not capable of pushing themselves as hard as is required for a successful HIIT regimen. If you're not capable of pushing yourself to do this type of strenuous exercise, you're not going to do it. It's as simple as that.
HIIT will work extraordinarily well for people that are already moderately fit or even overweight if they are capable of pushing through their pain (not the physical pain, the mental pain). Again, and again, and again; and each iteration is harder than the last.
Most people - especially the great unwashed overweight masses (pun intended) - aren't willing or capable of doing this, and simply aren't going to do it. They would be better served starting out just walking briskly for 30 minutes four or five times a week.
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If you consume fewer calories than you burn you will lose weight. No amount of adapting can get around that.
If only it were that easy. Metabolism varies depending on what you do, and what you eat. It can vary as much as 700 calories for people with similar body composition. That is, I may look exactly the same as you, and exercise the same amount, but I can eat 700 calories more than you each day without gaining weight. Furthermore it varies within the same person.
And that is ignoring body composition and nutrition. If you have a high sugar diet, you can still lose weight if you eat few calories, but you will not be very health. You want to lose weight in a way that makes you more healthy, not less healthy.
These are problems that can be overcome, of course, but claiming it is a simple inequality is ignoring a number of complications, tautological, and not particularly helpful.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Something that really helps me do treadmill is watching a movie. I once had a shelf for a laptop above the treadmill, but these days most treadmills have screens and iPod connections. I've found the best movies for exercising aren't great movies, they're 2 1/2 star action flicks. My wife has found the same thing, but for her it's trashy TV, mainly reality shows.
Even then, would I rather be doing other things? Probably. But it's just a cost of having a sedentary job. We weren't meant to live like this.
You wanna look like a douche, play around with some machines or dumbells (guess why they call them that). You wanna be healthy, feel great and get all the poon you can handle? Tai Chi.
I guess I rather look like a douche than act and sound like one.