Please to anyone reading this headline, remember: this is just for certain heart benefits. Exercise in lower amounts still gives you other health benefits compared to zero minutes of exercise. If you had a ten minute routine three times a week, please don't drop it.
People who are less fit need to do slightly more exercise than those who are very fit to get the same cardiovascular benefits, the study suggests.
The researchers say that the current one-size fits-all advice on exercise may need to be changed and replaced with personalised targets according to an individual’s fitness level.
That seems reasonable. 1.5 hours every day seems a lot for an average person but then not really if you think about our activity levels. Still, it is a big chunk of time for most, I hope it doesn't seem too daunting for people. I have been trying to do a stationary cycle ride every day this year and it's been going great, it's much more enjoyable after you get over that initial hump where you feel like you will die every time lol.
More like 2 hours when you account for injury days, especially as you get older. It is daunting and I'd be surprised if more than a few percent of people could keep that up.
it’s a sad state of affairs that people bemoan 2 hours of activity a day. i personally struggle to meet that so i get it, but it’s insane that we’ve created a society that wails in fear over not being able to be (ETA: or rather having to deal with the consequences of being) completely sedentary for a vast majority of their life.
It's not really that surprising. Why would a living thing want to exert itself for no real reward? I think biologically we want to conserve as much energy as possible.
It's only with modern medicine that we can analyze cause/effect and say "work out X hours to receive Y benefit in your later years." There are short term rewards to exercising, ie endorphins or "runner's high" but I am guessing those are just hardwired rewards our brain gave us when we had to chase our food down for miles.
2 hours a day is a lot. Most of us do not live in a world where thats possible; between working, cooking, cleaning, sleeping, hobbies, down time, there's just not enough time to do it all. I can empathize with the researcher's quest to prove a "one-size fits-all" doesn't really work but who is actually surprised by that? All this article does is depress people that already feel hopeless. Keep doing whatever exercise you can, listen to your body, and just try to find some happiness in this world. Physical activity is a great way to do it, but if I have some set expectation that I have to meet it becomes a lot less fun and more like any other chore.
my point is that we’ve just internalized this as normal. that it seems like such an insurmountable chore to even go on a bike ride or hike or maintain a garden or building project is sad to me as well. i grew up in a culture that absolutely hated any form of exercise, and i watched a lot of people live absolutely miserable, short lives because of it. i’ve put a ton of effort into rejecting that lifestyle, and i recognize that as a privilege.
i don’t think it’s so natural for beings to optimize their effort to zero. dogs will chew through cages or self harm. and i’ve seen humans who, without stimulus, will act similarly.
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