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Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

sydney.edu.au

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Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#151
post #76
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest misconception about exercise is this "if you're tired your best course of action would be to abstain from the thing that will make you more tired" train of thought. Exercise doesn't always work like this. Yes you'll have bad days, but you'll find yourself more energised most of the time and mentally more at peace. Thinking it will make you more tired can often be just a preconception. It's like that clas…

> Exercise doesn't always work like this. Yes you'll have bad days, but you'll find yourself more energised most of the time and mentally more at peace. Is there anything that will convince you this isn't true for all (perhaps not even most) people? The right type of exercise matters. I've often gone on bouts of cardio on a treadmill for months at a time (multiple times a week - at least 30 minutes each session). It…

Can you watch anything fun while doing your cardio? I look forward to working out because that's when I catch up on my Netflix shows. There's no way I'd stick with it if I didn't have something to take my mind off the grind.

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BeatSaber maybe? Something addictive is better even if it is less effective. I also do FitXR, which is more effective, but requires more of a grinding mindset so I often mix it with BeatSaber, which doesn’t grind. I would experiment at least, there are things. A good instructor in an aerobics class can also help, although I find that too hit or miss to be sustainable.

Thrill of the fight is such a great game for excercise. You want to knock down your opponent so you can get really into it.

Ya, but it requires lots of space I think? Anyways, there are fun options if you don’t want to grind.

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#153
post #76
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The greatest misconception about exercise is this "if you're tired your best course of action would be to abstain from the thing that will make you more tired" train of thought. Exercise doesn't always work like this. Yes you'll have bad days, but you'll find yourself more energised most of the time and mentally more at peace. Thinking it will make you more tired can often be just a preconception. It's like that clas…

> Exercise doesn't always work like this. Yes you'll have bad days, but you'll find yourself more energised most of the time and mentally more at peace. Is there anything that will convince you this isn't true for all (perhaps not even most) people? The right type of exercise matters. I've often gone on bouts of cardio on a treadmill for months at a time (multiple times a week - at least 30 minutes each session). It…

I've been a runner of some sort most of my life. Raced other kids around the block when I was 6. Sprints back and forth across the field in middle school. Four years of cross-country and track in high school. Two state championships. Joined the Army as an adult. Hit a snag with spine injuries in my mid to late 30s, but back on the wagon and running 50+ miles per week in my mid 40s.

At every point in my life, including right now, I would agree 100% that a treadmill and stationary bike suck and I would not do those.

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#154
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dorian Yates (former mister Olympia) claimed he trained 4 times a week for 45 minutes while preparing for the contest. But very intense training.

He also sells training so there is reason to doubt anything he says about the topic.

Um, not really any reason to doubt as there's nothing wrong with selling what you find works

Moreover, my experience in having formerly trained to compete at top international levels, studied exercise physiology and worked as a trainer, is very similar.

The really short oversimplified version is: more intensity, shorter training, and more rest — it is the balance of exercise and rest that is key. And world-class results are definitely possible with relatively brief workouts; in fact, it's the best way to do it.

The simplified concept is the muscles gain strength with stimulated rest. The training/exercise only provides the stimulus for the muscles to grow, the exercise does not actually grow the cells, it degrades or damages them. It is the repair process that strengthens the muscle. Too much exercise and too little rest (=repair+growth) just degrades the system; too much rest without exercise stimulus wastes potential growth time.

Some is good, but more is not necessarily better.

While there is no question that some exercise is almost always better than none, if you want peak results, intensity is the key. By intensity, we mean pushing the muscle to failure, so the end of each lifting set is not a predetermined number of reps, but the rep where you push as hard as possible and simply cannot complete the lift (after ~5-25 reps depending on focus on strength vs bulk, respectively). Do that one to three times for each muscle in the workout, then give it some days rest. A 45-min workout is sufficient to work the upper, mid, or lower body zone. Doing only one zone each day fits a max of six workouts per week, and monitoring vital signs (pulse/bp/temp) for overall stress will usually reduce that to around four weight workouts per week. This is what worked for me and the people I trained, and I'm not the least bit surprised to find it also worked for Dorian Yates (and no, I'm not selling anything related to exercise programs).

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#156
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Exercise doesn't always work like this. Yes you'll have bad days, but you'll find yourself more energised most of the time and mentally more at peace. Is there anything that will convince you this isn't true for all (perhaps not even most) people? The right type of exercise matters. I've often gone on bouts of cardio on a treadmill for months at a time (multiple times a week - at least 30 minutes each session). It…

Can you watch anything fun while doing your cardio? I look forward to working out because that's when I catch up on my Netflix shows. There's no way I'd stick with it if I didn't have something to take my mind off the grind.

I listen to podcasts. Boredom is not the problem.

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#157

Tabata et al.[1] found in the mid-1990s that just 2-4 minutes of "high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly." This was popularized as "Tabata training" 20+ years ago. I generally believe that brief bouts of exercise can be very beneficial, especially because they're easier to do consistently over the long-term vs. more time-consuming routines. F…

tabata is the worst, i've tried and i was not feeling well for hours

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#158

Tabata et al.[1] found in the mid-1990s that just 2-4 minutes of "high-intensity intermittent training may improve both anaerobic and aerobic energy supplying systems significantly." This was popularized as "Tabata training" 20+ years ago. I generally believe that brief bouts of exercise can be very beneficial, especially because they're easier to do consistently over the long-term vs. more time-consuming routines. F…

I remember reading something about Tabata/HIIT being something you don't want to do every day, due to the high intensity and strain on your CNS. Is this not the thinking anymore?

The original experimental protocol was "only" four days per week, so it was never suggested to be an everyday thing. The extreme thinking among runners is probably three days per week of short intervals or repeats. The more conventional thinking is more like one day per week with a much higher volume of easy zone 2 running on the other days.

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#159
post #124

Magnesium will lower your blood pressure, just take magnesium. The crazy thing is the diuretics that are prescribed to lower blood pressure cause magnesium deficiency.

Garlic will also lower your blood pressure: https://www.examine.com/conditions/high-blood-pressure

true but at a heavy cost

Re: Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure

#160
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shannon Sharpe works out at my gym. Huge guy. Former NFL tight-end. Still very fit. I notice he only does 1 hour at the gym and then he leaves. Granted, this is very low quality anecdata. But seeing how brief his workout is opened my eyes to the benefit of consistency over volume.

I wish someone had told me this: once you put muscle on your frame it tends to stick around. If you bulk up and turn into Hercules over the course of a few years you can scale back your training volume dramatically and as long as you keep your diet right, you will continue to be a jacked and cut dude for many many years. I'm sure this gets less true as you age but it seems to apply to me in my 40s. Maintenance is jus…

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Shannon Sharpe was doing a lot more than one hour per day of training when he was playing competitively. It's my observation that two workouts or practices per day is typical for collegiate athletics, even in the sports and at the schools that don't bring in money.

But after that? Yeah, no doubt that one can maintain most of that fitness with a small fraction of the time and effort.

As I said up-thread, I started running as an Army cadet, and I've continued to take annual fitness tests throughout my career. The fastest guys on those tests are guys who (unsurprisingly) were serious runners or soccer players in high school / college but who (surprisingly) did very little running after that. They could jump into the test cold and laugh their way to two miles in 12:00 (11:00 if they were really trying). I, on the other hand, basically didn't start running until I joined the Army, and I had to put in a lot of miles to break 13:00. For several years after that, though, I was able to reduce my mileage too and still run circles around a lot of people.

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