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How little exercise can you get away with?

economist.com

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Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#11

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly people are not. There’s thousands of sports and ways to move out there. You don’t like running, well don’t. Go dancing, hiking, play a team sport, do tai-chi, yoga, goddammit change a hobby every two months, it doesn’t matter. Just do it and do it consistently every week.

And what best helps you in that is enjoying what you do, as well as doing it with a friend.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#12

Post by RIMR »

yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

Restructuring the modern lifestyle, allowing people more free time to focus on their health, is unprofitable.

Whereas minimizing the amount of free time people spend on their health, allowing people more time to labor or consume, is profitable.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#14

Post by RyanOD »

RIMR wrote: post #12
yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

Restructuring the modern lifestyle, allowing people more free time to focus on their health, is unprofitable. Whereas minimizing the amount of free time people spend on their health, allowing people more time to labor or consume, is profitable.

100% agree. The real battle isn't the actual exercise. It's initiating it in the face of endless distractions.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#15

Post by dheera »

yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

It's not hard to restructure it at all.

1. Ban overworking. Make it a federal offense. Actually jail CEOs if their employees work >50 hours a week

2. These exercise tracking apps should pay people for the exercise they do. The money will come from health insurance. They pay $1 per mile you run or hike, they save $10 on your future hospitalization.

3. City sponsored exercise events and sports competitions open to everyone, not just athletes. Give tax deductions to those who participate and demonstrate attendance.

The solution is right here, above. Whether the politicians choose to listen, is not something I can influence. But I have given the solution.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#16

Post by nradov »

layman51 wrote: post #9
KashifNY wrote: post #5

At least 30 minutes in a day, probably 3 days a week at minumum as the body requires it to maintain itself that is though if you want to live a happy and good life, but then over doing its isnt good as well, theres need to be a balance in everything

Overdoing it is a real risk, I learned recently. If you work out too hard, you actually produce free radicals. The tricky thing is that some people can get used to higher heart rate so it doesn’t matter if they are working out hard consistently because they are used to it.

That's not how any of this works. Exercise causes some oxidative stress but this isn't a problem in practice. There is only a tiny fraction of committed athletes who over train to the point where it becomes detrimental; most people simply don't have the time or discipline to get anywhere close to that point.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2020.04.001

As for heart rate, going above threshold is never comfortable. But it's a good pain and you can get used to tolerating it for occasional high-intensity interval workouts. Over time this will decrease your resting heart rate and reduce the risk of a major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE).

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#17

Post by ynac »

yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

Agreed. I've figured it out during the drier months in the NW of the States. Plenty of work in the woods, workshop, maintenance, and helping neighbors with the same. But winter and the rains I would inevitably put on 10 pounds and lose my super old guy muscles. My mildly successful campaign against the trend is long rain walks and Convict Conditioning workouts.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#18

Post by algoth1 »

It may sound crazy, but a properly installed pull up bar on your room doorway is a fun way to apply Pavel Tsatsouline ‘grease the groove’ principle. And it’s both easy and fun. You can do pull ups, and train your abdomen several times a day without getting psychological resistance (from google overview: "Grease the Groove" (GtG) is a strength training method popularized by fitness expert Pavel Tsatsouline. It involves performing a specific exercise frequently throughout the day using only 40–60% of your maximum reps. By avoiding muscle failure and staying fresh, your nervous system efficiently adapts to the movement.")

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#19

Post by JohnMakin »

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #11

How about you instead of trying to “get away with” as little exercise as possible you found a way to move your body that you genuinely enjoy? One should not optimise away sleep, nutrition and exercise. Yes we live in a ridiculous fitness and gym boom, but weight training might not actually be a good fit to most people. I love having to psych myself to lift big amounts of steel, I’m ok with bit of pain etc. - mostly p…

Some people have disabilities or physical limitations.

Re: How little exercise can you get away with?

#20

Post by BurningFrog »

yoz-y wrote: post #4

Median age of 61… 4.4 minutes of “vigorous” activity. Hard to interpret this as anything else that if you remain being able to be somehow active in your later years you will be better off. I find all of the studies of “how little exercise” is needed sad. Instead we should be focusing on how to restructure modern lifestyle to allow everybody to achieve the minimum of cardiovascular and strength exercises.

Completely restructuring society seems so simple to some people.
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