More on Short Exercise Sessions (August 5, 2014)
Running for as few as five minutes a day can considerably reduce premature mortality, says a new study, meaning that even small amounts of genuinely vigorous exercise can have far more benefits than previously believed. The differences between the group that ran and the one that did not was remarkable.
As I have stated almost ad nauseum lately, the current exercise recommendation for adults is 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise plus two weight-lifting sessions of undetermined length. The original recommendations stated that “probably” 15 minutes a day of vigorous exercise would produce the same results as 30 minutes of moderate activity. This study found not only that that surmise was mostly correct, but also that you could even cut back to five or ten minutes of vigorous activity daily and still get a big benefit.
If you ran longer than the “burst” exercisers (150 minutes or more per week, or running at a pace faster than 10 mph) you lived a bit longer than those who only ran a few minutes a day. Just a bit, though. The advantages of running even at a leisurely pace and even for short periods of time (five minutes a day at a rate of 6 mph) were considerable. It’s thought that the benefits are not so much from running as such, but mainly that the exercise is somewhat vigorous. So jumping rope or vigorous pedaling of a stationary bike, for examples, should produce the same results.
Now, the issue of causality would be a big one with this particular study. After all, a lot of people just CAN’T run, and any study that compares people who can run to those who can’t is going to see a lot of differences, many of which may not be useful. In this case, the researchers did adjust for weight and smoking and still found that people who ran – even five minutes a day – lived on average three years longer than those who did not. Of even more relevance, to my mind at least -- overweight smokers who ran were definitely less likely to die than people who did not run regardless of their weight or smoking habits. That means that an overweight smoker who ran lived longer than a normal-weight nonsmoker who did not run. THAT is of great interest.
I don’t mean to keep beating a dead horse here with the topic of brief exercise sessions, but time is a genuine consideration for a lot of people, and I really want to emphasize that just because you can’t put a lot of time into exercise doesn't mean that you can't be healthy. Because you can.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014
Running for as few as five minutes a day can considerably reduce premature mortality, says a new study, meaning that even small amounts of genuinely vigorous exercise can have far more benefits than previously believed. The differences between the group that ran and the one that did not was remarkable.
As I have stated almost ad nauseum lately, the current exercise recommendation for adults is 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise plus two weight-lifting sessions of undetermined length. The original recommendations stated that “probably” 15 minutes a day of vigorous exercise would produce the same results as 30 minutes of moderate activity. This study found not only that that surmise was mostly correct, but also that you could even cut back to five or ten minutes of vigorous activity daily and still get a big benefit.
If you ran longer than the “burst” exercisers (150 minutes or more per week, or running at a pace faster than 10 mph) you lived a bit longer than those who only ran a few minutes a day. Just a bit, though. The advantages of running even at a leisurely pace and even for short periods of time (five minutes a day at a rate of 6 mph) were considerable. It’s thought that the benefits are not so much from running as such, but mainly that the exercise is somewhat vigorous. So jumping rope or vigorous pedaling of a stationary bike, for examples, should produce the same results.
Now, the issue of causality would be a big one with this particular study. After all, a lot of people just CAN’T run, and any study that compares people who can run to those who can’t is going to see a lot of differences, many of which may not be useful. In this case, the researchers did adjust for weight and smoking and still found that people who ran – even five minutes a day – lived on average three years longer than those who did not. Of even more relevance, to my mind at least -- overweight smokers who ran were definitely less likely to die than people who did not run regardless of their weight or smoking habits. That means that an overweight smoker who ran lived longer than a normal-weight nonsmoker who did not run. THAT is of great interest.
I don’t mean to keep beating a dead horse here with the topic of brief exercise sessions, but time is a genuine consideration for a lot of people, and I really want to emphasize that just because you can’t put a lot of time into exercise doesn't mean that you can't be healthy. Because you can.
--dr. diane holmes
Copyright © 2014