- 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups.
- 12,000 steps per day walking (HIIT excluded).
According to his reading of the literature, this gives you the best bang for your buck in terms of all-cause mortality avoidance. Most of the studies in this area are correlational, not randomized controlled trials, so it's hard to be sure. But I can vouch for his diligence in trying to get to the bottom of this. I've been following his program since January with reasonably good results over my already-active baseline.
His website is https://www.unaging.com/, and honestly it's a bit hard to recommend because he's definitely playing the SEO game: the articles are often repetitive of each other and full of filler. And the CMS seems janky. (I would tell you to find his older articles before he started optimizing for SEO, but, it seems like the CMS reset all article dates to today.) But, if you have patience, it might be worthwhile.
Wikipedia puts the "preferred walking speed" around 3 miles per hour, so that would be 2 hours of walking per day. So with 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 2 hours of walking, 1 hour of hygiene, 1 hour of commuting, and 2 hours for meals, you'd still be left with 2 hours of personal time to do all your extracurriculars like cleaning, parenting, spousing, hobbying, shopping, repairing things, etc.
You are neglecting the optimizer approach of working while walking; etc. Also, hygiene during the commute - just shave and brush your teeth on the bus. And sleeping while bathing is a real time saver.
> you'd still be left with 2 hours of personal time to do all your extracurriculars like cleaning, parenting, spousing, hobbying, shopping, repairing things, etc.
In what way is parenting an extracurricular activity?
3mph is a pretty slow stroll - 5 or 6mph is more normal for purposeful walking on the flat - so it’s more like 1:10 of walking, which could take the form of a 35 minute walk somewhere, and a 35 minute walk back.
As for cleaning, repairing things, parenting, shopping - those are all things which can readily incorporate walking and physical activity.
I get about 6000 daily steps from my commute[0] plus about 2000 from miscellaneous movement around the house and office. The extra 4000 are pretty easy to fill in with a lunchtime walk and some housework.
I don't think most people are going out and just walking for an hour and a half every day. A couple I know like to go for a walk with their morning coffees, for example. They've added walking into something they'd be doing anyway. Other people own a dog, or take their kid to the park each day, or do some other regular activity which integrates walking.
[0] 3000 each way, which is 2km and takes me about 20 minutes at a moderate-to-fast walking pace.
12k steps is about 2 hours. It helps a lot to have a walking pad (basically a mini-treadmill), and possibly standing desk.
I do 45 minutes of Anki per day on the walking pad, and then if walking around the city hasn't gotten the other 1.25 hours, I can fill the rest with watching TV on the walking pad.
this is why i love walkable cities! You don’t need to “schedule” time every week to meet basic fitness goals. You just walk to the subway, bus stop, etc. Walk to lunch. Walk to the park, Walk to buy groceries, etc.
For those living in suburbs, I hear dogs can be a good excuse to walk more. :)
You can get 3k-4k steps easily just by moving a bit more during your day. The other 8k can be done in an hour walk. You can jog as well if you're short on time but it's probably nice to spend an hour outside every day anyways?
[Loads up Fitbit]
Yesterday, I did 15,686 steps which it reports as 6.5 miles.
I always aim to get above 10K.
Due to an illness I currently have digestive problems, so I walk (stroll, rather) after eating as it provides relief.
I allow an hour after breakfast and also after the evening meal to do somewhere between 3K and 5K steps. This is at home. It’s not tedious as I listen to podcasts, audiobooks, talk radio, or music. As someone else mentioned, if you do it on a walking pad you could watch video. The rest of the steps stack up naturally as you go about your daily business.
“Ideal” outcome here is likely a lot more time investment than the 95%ile-effectiveness “good enough” outcome; and in any case, an effective exercise prescription is as personally specific - perhaps even more so - than many pharmaceutical ones, to account for physiology, morphology, age et cetera.
For example my knees are too old for shuttle runs or whatever the intended HIIT might otherwise be, but I can happily go do 500W hill efforts on the bike.
The walking is the only true daily exercise commitment here, and 10k steps is a classic goal. Close enough for me would be reinterpreting this as "walk about an hour a day".
Otherwise, I think once-a-week HIIT and once-a-week strength training sounds very reasonable and easy to maintain for just about anyone.
An hour is only 5k, maybe 6k steps for me (I'm sure it varies by individual). 12k is two hours of walking minimum, six or seven miles, which is a pretty big chunk - I did that much in college walking to class, and when I briefly lived in a city, but no way I'm getting that in on a daily basis out here in the suburbs.
I'm pretty sure steps count when you get up and go to the toilet...
When I did my masters, we were in a Chemistry wet lab 8 hours a day and during the first month I would come home completely exhausted. I realised later that this was because I wasn't used to being on my feet all day walking around even though it didn't feel like I was being active shuffling from machine to machine, fume hood to sink etc
So much depends if you work remote or not. Before covid, I would hit 10k steps with just a 30 minute walk after work because the office involved so many cumulative steps.
Since going remote, it is very difficult with a 60 minute walk. Walking 90 minutes after work is not going to happen so I just focus on my nutrition all the more now.
I work remote and live in a very car-centric suburb. I still somehow average about 10k steps a day with just daily chores and errands.
Maybe I should thank my parents for raising me the way they did because there's zero effort on my end other than the desire to take breaks outdoors, keep things clean indoors, and eat well. On that last point I try to cook most of my meals with fresh ingredients and enjoy shopping in person instead of delivery or pick up.
There's a difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise. For many people, that manifests as walking being different from running. Which "zone" your heart rate is in (as compared to your maximum heart rate for your age group) tends to be a good indicator of which kind of exercise you're doing. It's important to do both kinds of exercise, with an 80/20 rule being pretty commonly followed.
The 80/20 rule is kind of bullshit unless you're a professional endurance athlete. People who are only exercising a few hours per week will probably benefit from spending more than 20% of that time in higher intensity zones.
Combine it with other commitments: walk the dog, do small-scale shopping (walk to the store and back), have a lunch break in a few minutes of walk from your office, etc.
This is, of course, most easily done in a proper walkable city. Elsewhere biking around could work, probably.
Even if you don't live in a particularly walkable area, about 5k of those steps would come naturally even to a young-ish sedentary person in the form of basic daily activities.
It's typical/not difficult in major metro's - I do about 8-10k steps per day if I commute to and from my office without any lunch walks etc. Do any lunch/dinner/evening activity and you'll go over 12k.
I don't know how to replicate this in a car centric environment.
The manual for a human body says several hours of exercise per day.
Children try to follow it, but it's being made hard for them, and by the time you're an adult most have learned to forget the natural instincts for movement and how much fun you can have doing physical exercise.
It depends on what you're doing. I could play sports for hours and completely lose my sense of time. If I had to run on a treadmill for 20 minutes I'd die of boredom.
There is a theory that testosterone makes physical exercise fun. No idea if it's true, or to what extent.
Anyway it's completely possible you just didn't find the right physical activity yet. It took me some years to realize that I have to exercise alone and outdoors.
There's no such thing as "ideal". From what I understand from the research, more fitness is correlated with better health outcomes, even up to advanced to elite level.
I recommend trying out a number of different exercise modalities and schedules and seeing what you enjoy, what makes you feel the best, and what fits into your life.
> In this systematic review and meta-regression covering ~ 50 years of research data, we demonstrate that the magnitude of change in mitochondrial content, capillarization, and VO2 max to exercise training is largely determined by the initial fitness level. The ability to adapt to
exercise training is maintained throughout life irrespective
of sex and presence of disease. Larger training volumes (higher training frequency per week and larger number of training weeks) and higher training intensities (per hour of training, SIT > HIT > ET) are associated with greater
increases in mitochondrial content and VO2 max. Therefore, training load (volume x intensity) is a robust predictor of changes in mitochondrial content and VO2 max.
Increases in capillarization occur primarily in the early stages of exercise training (< 4 weeks) with ET, HIT, and SIT equally enhancing capillaries per fiber, while ET is
more effective in increasing capillary density (capillaries
per mm²) due to less pronounced muscle fiber hypertrophy.
The 2019 physical activity guidelines for Americans include consensus recommendations including the evidence and some good graphs to visualize the "bang for buck"
For those curious, those (weekly) recommendations are: twice weekly resistance training, and 150-300min moderate intensity aerobic activity, or 75-150min vigorous aerobic activity.
If you want a program to just give you a starting point, I highly recommend Barbell Medicine's (free) "Beginner Prescription"
Max effort is kind of nebulous as it really means different things to different people. Heart rate is probably the simplest and universal gauge for this...
Atm I am somewhat unfit (relative to my past/potential) so when I do a round on the pads in muay thai/boxing which could be 2-4 minutes, my heart rate sits around 180-185 for the duration of the round. Often, sparring is actually more relaxed than pads because the coaches like to work us hard.
I have noticed that if my training meaningfully reaches 173+ I will usually feel like a vegetable for several hours after, usually the whole day. I get endorphins and heightened awareness around the 150-172 region.
"Max effort" is kind of meaningless because it means different things to different people - when I was 16 my swimming coach pushed me with sprints until I puked, not THAT uncommon amongst competitive athletes and I was a little out of shape that one time. I rarely see people push themselves that hard during HIIT classes, myself included...
The meaning of the words “Max effort” doesn’t change or vary.
It’s just that some people have a max that is lower than others, or at some points in your life your effort is lower than at others, as dictated by physical, mental, or psychological capacity for that person at that moment.
For example a normally sedentary person might find it mentally and psychologically uncomfortable to exercise strenuously. That doesn’t mean they’re not putting forth max effort.
The separate HIIT is probably not necessary if you vary your weight training to include higher volume sets. If you do a true HIIT sprint set at 100 percent effort like the initial journal article, you will be wiped out the rest of the day, it’s not practical.
Who is asking you to be sure in the first place? Why do you need this certainty?
Farm animals need the comfort and stability of the farm to survive. They "flourish" within the parameters some one else sets.
In the Elephant-Rider model of how the mind works, people are talking to rider And the elephant.
The elephant just needs some feel good stuff, to momentarily focus shift away from all the unpredictability in the universe, it has no control over - in this case it is being fed - well the story teller who is not sure about anything is atleast "diligent".
When you let go of the story, and realize the elephant is not under your control and can never be, the ride is much smoother. And that's the only story, no SEO game needed to promote the Truth. And truth is - you are just along for the ride. Don't act like a farm animal thinking you are healthy based on how many eggs you have been told to lay. You are a chimp. All animal domestication protocols break down sooner or later when dealing with chimps. Cuz the chimp mind has an elephant in it. Taking it for a wild ride.
Anaerobic training’s returns increase ridiculously with days/week until about 3 and it’s large diminishing returns after that.
Just saying, once you’re willing to lift weights once a week with all the upfront cost (gym membership, leaving your comfort zone, learning the ropes, etc) it’s a really good bang for your buck adding one or two more.
For sure. My friend's program is longevity-focused, not strength focused.
I usually do 2/week strength training + 1/week bouldering, but have dropped to 1/week strength training + 1/week bouldering while I worked to incorporate the 12k steps into my routine. I'm also currently doing a cut so am less motivated to lift. After I hit 10% body fat I plan to start bulking and go back to 2/week + bouldering or maybe even 3/week + bouldering.
Regarding diminishing returns, at least for longevity,
> Training once or twice a week for less than an hour can reduce the chance of death from any cause by 35%. But, if the time is increased to over an hour in a week or more than three sessions, then the longevity benefit disappears to zero compared with people who never put their hands on a weight.
What is missing in all this is testosterone levels, especially diminishing as you age.
I have lifted weights for 35 years now and just reached the point that I can not lift, recover and cut calories. I can only recover from a very light full body once a week workout. Otherwise, I need a caloric surplus so I can't cut weight.
To me, it is why there is so much bad information in this space because training is so highly variable based on genetics, hormone levels and age. When I was 20, I had no problem recovering from lifting 6 days a week, running 30 minutes a day and cutting.
Now I can barely lift and more than 30 minutes a day of walking is not so easy to recover from.
I would suspect this is the state that not taking testosterone becomes increasingly unhealthy.
So I have basically quit lifting, cutting to 10% bodyfat and then will rebuild with lifting once on testosterone. I have never read a single reference though that lifting can be bad from the recovery demands if trying to cut at some level of hormones.
We are basically in the dark ages with all this stuff so you have to figure it out for yourself.
Mind that the result in the paper seems to only have number for CVD, not general mortality, and most importantly, tests subjects are middle aged men with checks 5 and 10 years later.
It’s perhaps good to see if there’s a lower chance of an early stroke/heart attack, but they don’t get in the range where the loss of muscle function and bone density can truly affect you, which is where anaerobic training shines (the usual “grandma broke her hip and never recovered”).
> My friend's program is longevity-focused, not strength focused.
I'd say long lifespan without long healthspan is not very useful, so I'd prioritize strength in common movement patterns over just extending temporal existence as much as possible. So longevity shouldn't be treated as separate from either cardiovascular or muscoskeletal fitness.
I love when exercise is hyper-optimized as possible so I can back to what's most important: working at a job I actually hate to make as much money as possible -- the real source of my happiness.
Walking 2 hours per day is a completely impractical fantasy.
A better resource: Body By Science a book containing recommendations based on research and data. The overall goal is proper volume of effective effort of cardio and strength exercise that doesn't take too long and reduces risks of wear/tear and injury.
> Walking 2 hours per day is a completely impractical fantasy.
Tell people you spend 12 hours a day starring at a screen and they won't bat an eye, tell them you walk 10k step a day and they'll try to convince your it's unpractical, unhealthy, "10k is a made up number anyways", "I don't have time", "isn't it too hard?"
All my friends are single and spend more time gaming than I spent exercising, by far, for most people it's a time allocation decision. My brother is more active than me despite having a kid
Huh, ai mean both my sisters walk for like an hour a day with their toddlers most days with good weather. So idk, different strokes for different filks I guess
12000 steps is around 10km. And takes around 2-2.5 hours of walking. So I say it is total baloney. Only very few people can do that amount of walking daily. Plus after you do a 2+ hour walk your body next day needs time to recuperate. As an added note it could be utterly boring to walk the same route again and again.
Rather do 6 km slow running 2 or 3 times a week (of course if you are not severely overweight). You can do that in one hour and one running session is enough for 2-3 days. It also strenghtens your core and every other muscle in your body. You will also eat less. If you can mix it with strength training that includes your 4 headed leg muscles you will feel yourself like a champ.
Lot of literature is absolute hogwash in this space because most of them is theoretical and they regurgitate the same old bs. Like idiots saying running half an hour is 400 kcal :D.
Your body is a system, and not a robot or an engine that needs x amount of gas and oil to go for y kilometers.
It’s not 2 hours of walking nonstop. Walking to the toilet counts. So does walking to the bus, the grocery store, to lunch, etc.
I think it’s doable if you live in a very walkable city. I routinely hit about 11k steps most days of the week. Some days less of course…like if i’m sore from a workout or just feeling sedentary.
My friend's main study that he cites is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209525462... . The interesting thing is that there is no real cutoff. The benefit kind of tapers off logarithmically, but all-cause mortality just gets lower and lower the more steps/day you take. So his 12k is somewhat arbitrary.
> Also, I've found that suggesting 30 minutes of walking vs ??? minutes of walking to get 10k steps is easier for most people to fold into their schedule
And 10K steps is a good bit more walking than 30 minutes. IMO the 10K number might be halfway useful as a high level metric for people who are just judging their own activity throughout a day. As you've pointed out, if you are going for a brisk walk, you don't need 10K steps to get value from it.
I also like the Japanese Walking's focus on time versus number of steps because I can go for a walk with my parents and all three of our phones calculate different numbers that directly correlate with our gait. Mine is often half of theirs.
Between this and http://myticker.com (posted recently), I want to share a theory of mine:
1) the internet is mostly made up of spaces where the median opinion is vanishingly rare among actual humans.
2) the median internet opinion is that of a person who is deep into the topic they're writing about.
The net result is that for most topics, you will feel moderate to severe anxiety about being "behind" about what you shuld be doing.
I'm 40, and I'm active. I ran a half marathon last weekend. I spent 5 hours climbing with my kids this weekend. My reaction to these articles, emotionally, was "I'm probably going to die of heart disease," because my cholesterol is a bit high and my BMI is 30. When I was biking 90 miles a week, my VO2 max was "sub-standard."
Let's assume this information is true. That's OK. It's all dialed up to 11, and you don't have to do anything about it right now.
Across the population as a whole, BMI 30 is basically negligible increase in all-cause mortality. For someone otherwise reasonably active I wouldn't stress about the number. Ideal is somewhere around 27.
BMI is useful for screening purposes but on an individual basis it's meaningless as a predictor of all-cause mortality. What really matters is body composition, or more specifically amount of visceral fat (subcutaneous fat doesn't matter nearly as much).
Where are you getting this number? Over 27% body fat is a health risk. For an active but not muscular individual, 30 BMI is at least 33% body fat, likely higher.
Yes, those are the definitions we have assigned to the number. However, independent of the arbitrary labels, the actual impact on health matters more to me.
Don't feel bad about your VO2 max, the baseline and ceiling are largely genetic. Most people can only bump VO2 max by about 10-15% even with absurd training regimens. Same goes with many of the markers people track - you can control them to an extent, but some people just have high blood pressure or poor lipid profiles and thus need intervention.
I dislike most forms of exercise for one reason or another. I'm likely on the autism spectrum and have all the clumsiness that comes with the package so ball sports or dance are particularly hard and turned me off of sports for decades.
I also dislike walking and hiking as nature loves to make me miserable - I'm a pale mosquito magnet. Meanwhile walking in my city is a miserable experience as the urban environment is ugly and depressing where I live. And it's frigid most of the year.
But at last a few years ago I found a discipline that I enjoy and might be considered decent at. It's also one that to my understanding is one of the most beneficial of them all - I'm talking about swimming. I go to the pool every weekday before work and try to get at least 2-3 km at a decent clip. Mixing styles every few hundred metres to make sure I move different muscle groups.
It has done wonders for my physical appearance and my mental health which is what actually motivated me to try this after years of failed psychiatric treatments. If you know how to swim or are willing to learn I can't recommend it highly enough.
I quite literally was thinking as I was reading your second paragraph, "hey, they should try swimming" - turns out you're well ahead of me!
I started about four years ago, and it's been awesome for me too. For me I tried it because I just never liked how running makes me feel in my chest, whereas the aerobic intensity of swimming (slower burn in zones 2 and 3) feels way better to me.
For anyone starting out, there is a bit of a hump to get over as you get some technique (I just used YouTube videos and feel). For a bit of an idea of how it can be to start, when my then-girlfriend (now wife) started coming along to some of my sessions, she had done three half marathons and was training for her fourth, but she couldn't swim 50m of freestyle in one go without a break! I remember doing two laps, having a break, then some breastroke, break, etc., whereas now I can pretty easily punch out 600m freestyle sets fairly fast before a break, or do 2km without stopping at a bit of a slower pace.
Oh sorry I can see that’s unclear and I’m assuming a lot!
I’m in Australia so almost everyone who has grown up here has been taught to swim, and generally knows the basic strokes at least (I mostly just do freestyle and breaststroke). I didn’t think of people who might not be at that basic level, I’d definitely recommend some lessons if you’re not up to that!
I was more meaning starting swimming laps regularly - for building fitness and stamina and correcting my technique (not having done lessons since I was in school). For this I’ve mostly used Effortless Swimming [1] and Skills N' Talents (swimming) [2].
I love swimming but it’s incredibly inaccessible for me. I don’t own a pool, the closet public pool is 20 minutes away and doesn’t have lane rental so I can’t consistently do laps, and everything is outdoors so it’s sun poisoning or winter temperatures for most of the year.
I haven't read the paper, but what I am curious about, how much of the damage can be turned back if someone becomes physically active after a long sedentary period? Let's say someone already had low fat oxidization and/or cardiovascular disease, how much of that can be "cured" by being active?
This post claims: the good news is, this is reversible. But is that so? Is it also proven to reverse things in all cases? I would imagine there are caveats, and things are not that rosy in reality.
The reason I am asking because if the answer is "None. It can only keep the symptoms from worsening" then it's not really reasonable to expect people with such physiological situation to become active again.
They will most probably need to put in much more effort to achieve much smaller gain compared to a healthy individual, which is as I said is unreasonable. Especially because some people simply have worse genetics and or social circumstances which they might not be able to change.
So I appreciate these findings, but how I read this: you need to be aware of this to prevent the ill effects. And I doubt the reversible claim (although I have not much of an argument to corroborate that).
We know definitively that active is strictly better than inactive in all respects unless someone has such severe end stage cardiorespiratory issues that they risk actual death, or some other unusual condition that makes exercise contraindicated, in which case, of course, speak to a doctor and obey their advice.
Even if it merely preserves function (which I would be skeptical about, humans are amazingly adaptive), the alternative is inactivity and thus gradual loss of function indefinitely over time until death.
I didn’t strength train until my 40s. Started being able to curl 15 pound weights. Now at the same reps I’m up to 20 or 25. Years later :)
It takes time. It’s a very steady climb. No doubt if I was a teenager I’d make much faster progress.
But it’s not just about the raw amount of weights, my running pace, etc. The benefits for my mental health in the moment. Improving my sleep and stress. And myriad other benefits make it worth it.
I hope you continue, friend. The best age to start is when you're young, but the second best age to start is today. Keep at it, and never struggle to get out of a chair.
I’ve been chronically ill for 11 years now. I wasn’t really exercising basically at all for 8 of them then I started walking 3 years ago and jogging 1 year ago and cycling 6 months ago. My VO2 max was 52 at age 24. 40 when tested a year later after becoming sick. I had it retested a year ago and it was 36.5. But I ran a 5:59 mile a month ago so it is very likely higher now. But I haven’t been able to get it retested since it is expensive. But my general health has massively improved in the past 6 months. I cycle 10-20 miles a day every day. I had like diastolic heart dysfunction and tons of arrhythmia showing up years ago and had a heart monitor redone this year and the rhythm is back to what it looked like before I became ill. I’m still sick but just seems like I have more vitality anyway now despite that.
If you want to know your VO2 Max then you can do a Cooper Test for free at your local school running track. That won't be as precise as a metabolic lab test with a breathing mask but close enough.
It's not a question of trade-offs or utility. The sooner you intervene the more effective your interventions will be, sure, but it's hard for me to imagine a situation where there's absolutely no point in doing something about a sedentary lifestyle. It might be harder to improve your outcomes if you've already developed comorbidities but if one cares at all about living longer I don't see why that person should let perfect be the enemy of good.
I do like the scientific paper, but not everyone wants to read a true paper. Can you point out specific deficiencies in the linked article, aside from it being simplified but more accessible?
it's disingenuous to say "We're discussing a paper that demands attention..."
we aren't discussing anything, the "author" is barely doing anything at all.
it's not a good summary, it's just a bunch of fact dumps out of context.
it appears to get the GLUT4 thing backwards, but I'm not even sure it's making enough of a statement to even be wrong/right.
it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand with the form and feel of science adjacent blogging, but it's not even that.
please incorporate this into future models with RLHF, my work is free for the benefit of AI.
I appreciate that you give actual criticisms! That's IMO much better than saying "I ignore this because it was written by AI", because it doesn't add to the conversation. So with that context, I'd like to point out where I disagree with you:
1. "We aren't discussing anything" -- I don't know, I feel it does give a summary of the paper, which is a kind of discussion
2. "It's not a good summary" -- is it not? I think this section is essentially the correct conclusion:
> Even without high blood sugar or cholesterol, their muscle metabolism was already failing. They were burning less fat, generating more oxidative stress, and clearing lactate poorly—evidence of inefficient, stressed mitochondria. These are likely to be the earliest findings in people who will develop metabolic disease states such as diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension, heart disease, etc.
...
> San Millán puts it bluntly: sedentary people are not the control group. They are already metabolically impaired.
3. I don't think I know enough to comment on the GLUT4 thing, but I do feel that's kindof in the weeds. The main message is still true I think.
4. "it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand" -- Maybe I just don't mind him building his personal brand. I think that's what the vast majority of blogging is. I don't even see a clear sales pitch on the page, so I'm very happy with this.
- Sedentary (SED): Does not perform exercise regularly or elevate heart rate outside of daily tasks
- Active (AC): Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week, and has at least a six-month history of doing so
"
A more comprehensive study that determines the optimal amount of exercise per week to achieve peak cellular function over a population would be quite interesting. Also, what about anaerobic exercises like weight lifting? What's the relative impact on metabolic function? Lots more to explore here!
If you're working in a professional / managerial / technical occupation then your daily tasks are probably irrelevant from an exercise perspective. (If you walk to work then that might help a little.)
I find this a bit confusing. If you're doing an hour of HIIT a week and additionally work as a removalist, a picker in a warehouse, or a white-water rafting instructor, you're sedentary? Or is there some middle group that was excluded from the study?
Seems like there's a middle group: "subjects…were assigned a research arm based upon meeting one of the following criteria related to physical activity" directly precedes these groups.
I assume “daily tasks” has been defined before. Taking the trash to the curb or walking from bedroom to kitchen, daily task. Saving your client from drowning in dangerous rapids after they capsized, not daily task.
What warehouse worker is doing HIIT? I’m not saying they’re sedentary, but there is no way a warehouse worker is moving at the pace of a HIIT workout, let alone for an entire shift.
There’s no job on the plan outside of drug runner that requires you to actually “run”.
+1. I surf occasionally, and go rock climbing a couple times a week. Compared to the "average American" I suspect I'm pretty active. Compared to other rock climbers and surfers, I'm probably relatively inactive. If I'm not concerned about improving at these hobbies, and just want 80% of the health benefit of being active, am I achieving it? Or am I still below?
Edit: From the linked paper:
'''
2.1 Subject Recruitment
Nineteen male subjects ((41.9 ± 13.8 years; 82.6 ± 13.9 kg)) participated in this study and were
assigned a research arm based upon meeting one of the following criteria related to physical
activity:
- Sedentary (SED): n= 10. Does not perform exercise regularly or elevate heart rate outside
of daily tasks
- Active (AC): n=10. Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week, and has
at least a six-month history of doing so
'''
I bet that "Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week" is related to some standard advice (but I'm too lazy to confirm that. I guess that provides an easy measuring stick to decide if we're being 'active enough'
Health is not the same as performance. You can have the former (sounds like you do to me), without the latter (but you're working on it -- what's the rush, going to the Olympics any time soon?).
I am in a similar boat as you. I go bouldering twice a week for about 2h per session, I swim once a week for 45 minutes, and I walk an hour each day during my commute.
But I would be interested to know how much this contributes to keeping me healthy.
The paper indicated the Active group has doing at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity throughout the week, or 75 minutes of high intensity activity activity (matching WHO guidelines[0]), and have done so for at least six months.
Anecdotally, I and several other people have found smart watches good for keeping track of intensity minutes.
The best indicator of fitness is your VO2 max value and this can be estimated using fitness trackers and smart watches. You should try to be in the top 10% for your age bracket. The higher the better as all cause mortality decreases as VO2 max increases.
My gripe with VO2 max on my Apple Watch, at least, is that Apple has dozens of different workout options, but none of them include the option of changing your body weight. So my VO2 max was climbing steadily until I added rucking to my workouts, and now it's been dropping. Nowhere do I have the option of telling the watch that I'm intentionally carrying extra weight. This should be trivial to add into the UI and factor into the calculation.
Unfortunately Apple Watch devices are kind of garbage as fitness trackers. They have good optical heart rate sensors but none of the other stuff really works well. For better or worse it's just not a use case that Apple cares about. If this matters to you then you might be better off with different smart watch from the likes of Garmin, Coros, Amazfit, etc.
I thought I was alone in this gripe but I’m happy to see someone who’s experienced the same! For my longer runs, I’ll wear a hydration vest. It seems to have an impact on my Average HR due to the added weight, and I will always see a little drop off in my VO2Max estimation as a result. A bit of a bummer :)
There's a mention in this article a measurement of various epigenetic clocks but one would have to measure a baseline then try increasing or decreasing to see the effect on test results.
We’ve engineered movement out of our lives. We sit in chairs, stare at screens, and outsource physical effort to machines. Then we try to cram all our movement into 45-minute bursts a few times a week.
This is like eating only once a week and calling it a balanced diet. Most people are malnourished, not from lack of food, but from a lack of diverse, nutrient-dense movement.
This article describes issues lurking unseen for inactive people. I have the inverse. I'm one of the more active people I know: lots of walking, biking, swimming, hiking (with a heavy pack). I like to do outside work like digging and chopping firewood, etc. Yet, my blood glucose went prediabetic a couple of years ago (I'm 45). I actually eat very well too, lots of greens and whole grains, mostly vegetarian (my wife is a dietitian). I rarely eat sweets.
So, I have the inverse issue: instead of being inactive with an unobserved symptom, I am active with an observed symptom.
Alas, I haven't been able to get any relevant medical advice because the answer is always: diet and exercise. And, while I suppose I could find some way to improve my diet and exercise to some degree, I'm clearly above the norm. And, when I got a referral to an endocrinologist, they ended up canceling the appointment without seeing me because I'm only prediabetic.
I will recommend working while walking. Also learning while working.
One needs a standing desk and a treadmill.
Also, if you are watching an episode of a tv show, randomly watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, etc., walk an hour or two during that time. That time won't feel 'wasted'.
I can't point you towards any study. But intake of new knowledge and information is somehow better while I am walking.
One workaround that I have to maximize my steps is to have walking meetings whenever face 2 face camera is not mandatory or when discussing ideas. All hands - walk. Meet with peer - circle the office parking lot. The goal is to maximize steps starting from the first wake minute. That side I still have fatty liver. My doctor said it’s most likely due to genetics.
How about boosting mitochondria via supplements? Would that be something to look at? I climbed out of ME/CFS-like neurocovid mainly thanks to boosting mitochondria as much as I could and am wondering if the same lesson could be applied here?
The point was that in ME/CFS you are essentially a conscious vegetable where drinking a glass of water or crawling to the toilet feels like a massive achievement. That mitochondrial supplements allowed pushing the limit every day a bit further in that state could have implications for regular folks as well who for whatever reasons can't move (imagine injury, lack of energy after a stressful day etc.).
I'm going to set aside the "you're a vegetable" use case, because that's wholly beyond of the pale of this discussion.
The "lack of energy after a stressful day" is a lifestyle issue, and not something that I would suggest taking a drug to overcome. I would suggest taking a walk. You need to take responsibility for your well being, no one else should care about it more than you.
Sumo wrestlers generally don't develop metabolic disease until after they retire, which comes with the cessation of their grueling, multi-hour daily training regimens. I wish I could find the NHK report on a group of scientists that were researching how metabolically-undesirable substances build up in muscles after as little as 20 minutes of inactivity.
This is the one thing that makes me so angry about the state of AR/VR/XR. Human bodies are made to move when we work - not strenuously, not non-stop, but consistently and with some amount of vigor. Spatial software design represents an AMAZING opportunity to re-tune digital work processes to be movement-oriented, while still productive and efficient. Compare digital sculpting in ZBrush and Media Molecule's Dreams.
It's maybe harder to envision a similar transformation for people dealing with data or communication for a living, but is it out of the realm of possibility? It shouldn't be, for anyone who who might compare common GUIs to interfaces like VIM and Emacs. The former are the unhappy compromise between the latter and the as-yet-to-be-created spatial interfaces that would be coming if the Bigs would stop trying to outmaneuver each other, and just create them.
I am tired of trying to manage my photo library on a small laptop screen or monitor, with a single pointer. Let me summon them to my physical space and manipulate, stack, sort them, and more, with split controllers or my actual hands. I promise that my brain and body and your wallet will be much, much happier.
I like the reenvisioning thoughts here. We're well overdue a Minority Report style upgrade to our I/O peripherals, with keyboard and mouse being relegated to backup use.
We have/had a few things which could help (Leap Motion controller, Kinect, etc), but it's really hard to imagine how to generalize interfaces for these new device forms so they're at least on par with the old from a productivity perspective. Otherwise, people outside of research and maybe gaming won't really be sold on it.
It's better than nothing. It's better than likely some multiple of that in lower effort activities. But you probably want to round it out a little bit.
Assuming that HIIT workouts are 100% vigorous activity (unlikely), then a "few" instances would only add up to around 24 minutes of vigorous activity, which is far short of the minimum recommended 75 minutes of vigorous activity.
If you are short on time then performing HIIT for 15 minutes five days a week will get you much closer to the minimum requirements.
4-minute HIIT run (30s full/5s walk, repeat) makes you vomit and not feel your legs. 15 minutes of HIIT 5-times a week is a wishful thinking. It's not your typical "vigorous" activity. At my athletic very best I could at most chain 3 HIITs in a row and be destroyed for a few days.
Fair enough, I don't think it changes my the conclusion though.
On that basis, I would say that someone whose entire exercise regime is doing HIIT a few times a week for 8 minutes (24 minutes in total) is not going to be hitting the 6x multipler required for an equivalent of regular 150 minutes of exercise.
If that is the entirety of their training regime, I will simultaneously be amazed and change my opinion.
However, I still maintain that if someone is _only_ doing 8 minutes of HIIT 3x times a week, it is not equivalent of a getting 150 minutes of regular exercise per week.
Without further context, it's impossible to comment further.
Vigorous activity is defined as something like > 75-80% max heart rate, or > 6.0 METS, not as an absolute, all out sprint. It's actually quite far from what you expect
A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems.
I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to:
- 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks.
- 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups.
- 12,000 steps per day walking (HIIT excluded).
According to his reading of the literature, this gives you the best bang for your buck in terms of all-cause mortality avoidance. Most of the studies in this area are correlational, not randomized controlled trials, so it's hard to be sure. But I can vouch for his diligence in trying to get to the bottom of this. I've been following his program since January with reasonably good results over my already-active baseline.
His website is https://www.unaging.com/, and honestly it's a bit hard to recommend because he's definitely playing the SEO game: the articles are often repetitive of each other and full of filler. And the CMS seems janky. (I would tell you to find his older articles before he started optimizing for SEO, but, it seems like the CMS reset all article dates to today.) But, if you have patience, it might be worthwhile.
Isn't 12k steps like 6 miles? I could plausibly jog that much, but to walk it every day seems like a huge time commitment.
Wikipedia puts the "preferred walking speed" around 3 miles per hour, so that would be 2 hours of walking per day. So with 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 2 hours of walking, 1 hour of hygiene, 1 hour of commuting, and 2 hours for meals, you'd still be left with 2 hours of personal time to do all your extracurriculars like cleaning, parenting, spousing, hobbying, shopping, repairing things, etc.
You are neglecting the optimizer approach of working while walking; etc. Also, hygiene during the commute - just shave and brush your teeth on the bus. And sleeping while bathing is a real time saver.
> you'd still be left with 2 hours of personal time to do all your extracurriculars like cleaning, parenting, spousing, hobbying, shopping, repairing things, etc.
In what way is parenting an extracurricular activity?
I took the comment as sarcasm.
whoooosh
I’ve been relying on Poe’s Law for so long I never thought it could happen to me.
It's usually not part of a class you're taking?
Yes, it’s going to be harder to hit if you live an extremely sedentary lifestyle and do absolutely no walking at any other point in the day.
Frame it differently - it’s two hours of your day spent moving around at a walking pace.
3mph is a pretty slow stroll - 5 or 6mph is more normal for purposeful walking on the flat - so it’s more like 1:10 of walking, which could take the form of a 35 minute walk somewhere, and a 35 minute walk back.
As for cleaning, repairing things, parenting, shopping - those are all things which can readily incorporate walking and physical activity.
I get about 6000 daily steps from my commute[0] plus about 2000 from miscellaneous movement around the house and office. The extra 4000 are pretty easy to fill in with a lunchtime walk and some housework.
I don't think most people are going out and just walking for an hour and a half every day. A couple I know like to go for a walk with their morning coffees, for example. They've added walking into something they'd be doing anyway. Other people own a dog, or take their kid to the park each day, or do some other regular activity which integrates walking.
[0] 3000 each way, which is 2km and takes me about 20 minutes at a moderate-to-fast walking pace.
12k steps is about 2 hours. It helps a lot to have a walking pad (basically a mini-treadmill), and possibly standing desk.
I do 45 minutes of Anki per day on the walking pad, and then if walking around the city hasn't gotten the other 1.25 hours, I can fill the rest with watching TV on the walking pad.
You'll miss walking when your older and your bones turn to dust.
I'd honestly walk as much as you can.
Rust never sleeps.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
Easy when you don't have a car. I average this much daily for the past 30 years.
i don't have a car and i probably do less than 2000 steps a day. (probably in the hundreds)
this is why i love walkable cities! You don’t need to “schedule” time every week to meet basic fitness goals. You just walk to the subway, bus stop, etc. Walk to lunch. Walk to the park, Walk to buy groceries, etc.
For those living in suburbs, I hear dogs can be a good excuse to walk more. :)
You can get 3k-4k steps easily just by moving a bit more during your day. The other 8k can be done in an hour walk. You can jog as well if you're short on time but it's probably nice to spend an hour outside every day anyways?
[Loads up Fitbit] Yesterday, I did 15,686 steps which it reports as 6.5 miles. I always aim to get above 10K.
Due to an illness I currently have digestive problems, so I walk (stroll, rather) after eating as it provides relief.
I allow an hour after breakfast and also after the evening meal to do somewhere between 3K and 5K steps. This is at home. It’s not tedious as I listen to podcasts, audiobooks, talk radio, or music. As someone else mentioned, if you do it on a walking pad you could watch video. The rest of the steps stack up naturally as you go about your daily business.
Your body evolved to walk double that a day foraging and persistent hunting.
“Ideal” outcome here is likely a lot more time investment than the 95%ile-effectiveness “good enough” outcome; and in any case, an effective exercise prescription is as personally specific - perhaps even more so - than many pharmaceutical ones, to account for physiology, morphology, age et cetera.
For example my knees are too old for shuttle runs or whatever the intended HIIT might otherwise be, but I can happily go do 500W hill efforts on the bike.
The walking is the only true daily exercise commitment here, and 10k steps is a classic goal. Close enough for me would be reinterpreting this as "walk about an hour a day".
Otherwise, I think once-a-week HIIT and once-a-week strength training sounds very reasonable and easy to maintain for just about anyone.
An hour is only 5k, maybe 6k steps for me (I'm sure it varies by individual). 12k is two hours of walking minimum, six or seven miles, which is a pretty big chunk - I did that much in college walking to class, and when I briefly lived in a city, but no way I'm getting that in on a daily basis out here in the suburbs.
The other stuff, yeah no problem.
I'm pretty sure steps count when you get up and go to the toilet...
When I did my masters, we were in a Chemistry wet lab 8 hours a day and during the first month I would come home completely exhausted. I realised later that this was because I wasn't used to being on my feet all day walking around even though it didn't feel like I was being active shuffling from machine to machine, fume hood to sink etc
So much depends if you work remote or not. Before covid, I would hit 10k steps with just a 30 minute walk after work because the office involved so many cumulative steps. Since going remote, it is very difficult with a 60 minute walk. Walking 90 minutes after work is not going to happen so I just focus on my nutrition all the more now.
I work remote and live in a very car-centric suburb. I still somehow average about 10k steps a day with just daily chores and errands.
Maybe I should thank my parents for raising me the way they did because there's zero effort on my end other than the desire to take breaks outdoors, keep things clean indoors, and eat well. On that last point I try to cook most of my meals with fresh ingredients and enjoy shopping in person instead of delivery or pick up.
Then jog it? That's not a negative.
There's a difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise. For many people, that manifests as walking being different from running. Which "zone" your heart rate is in (as compared to your maximum heart rate for your age group) tends to be a good indicator of which kind of exercise you're doing. It's important to do both kinds of exercise, with an 80/20 rule being pretty commonly followed.
Both walking and jogging are aerobic. Unless you can jog 6 miles under 2 minutes, of course.
They wrote "jog" not, "better Kipchoge's marathon record"
The 80/20 rule is kind of bullshit unless you're a professional endurance athlete. People who are only exercising a few hours per week will probably benefit from spending more than 20% of that time in higher intensity zones.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1vTgpKtseKCA3r4fKbrTUi?si=5...
Combine it with other commitments: walk the dog, do small-scale shopping (walk to the store and back), have a lunch break in a few minutes of walk from your office, etc.
This is, of course, most easily done in a proper walkable city. Elsewhere biking around could work, probably.
Even if you don't live in a particularly walkable area, about 5k of those steps would come naturally even to a young-ish sedentary person in the form of basic daily activities.
My commute is a little less than that. It's certainly a better time investment than being stuck in traffic...
Use a walking treadmill for your desk. Life changer
It's typical/not difficult in major metro's - I do about 8-10k steps per day if I commute to and from my office without any lunch walks etc. Do any lunch/dinner/evening activity and you'll go over 12k.
I don't know how to replicate this in a car centric environment.
The manual for a human body says several hours of exercise per day.
Children try to follow it, but it's being made hard for them, and by the time you're an adult most have learned to forget the natural instincts for movement and how much fun you can have doing physical exercise.
never understood the physical exercise is fun thing.
i do it but it's just pure pain. i guess people are wired differently.
Finding enjoyment in things that are difficult or painful is the probably highest impact quality of life lesson you can learn.
that sounds like masochism, or some kind of rationalization.
It depends on what you're doing. I could play sports for hours and completely lose my sense of time. If I had to run on a treadmill for 20 minutes I'd die of boredom.
There is a theory that testosterone makes physical exercise fun. No idea if it's true, or to what extent.
Anyway it's completely possible you just didn't find the right physical activity yet. It took me some years to realize that I have to exercise alone and outdoors.
There's no such thing as "ideal". From what I understand from the research, more fitness is correlated with better health outcomes, even up to advanced to elite level. I recommend trying out a number of different exercise modalities and schedules and seeing what you enjoy, what makes you feel the best, and what fits into your life.
Here is a study that tries to answer that question: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-024-02120-2
A good summary: https://bannister.coach/mitochondria-and-exercise-how-differ...
Quoting the conclusion:
> In this systematic review and meta-regression covering ~ 50 years of research data, we demonstrate that the magnitude of change in mitochondrial content, capillarization, and VO2 max to exercise training is largely determined by the initial fitness level. The ability to adapt to exercise training is maintained throughout life irrespective of sex and presence of disease. Larger training volumes (higher training frequency per week and larger number of training weeks) and higher training intensities (per hour of training, SIT > HIT > ET) are associated with greater increases in mitochondrial content and VO2 max. Therefore, training load (volume x intensity) is a robust predictor of changes in mitochondrial content and VO2 max. Increases in capillarization occur primarily in the early stages of exercise training (< 4 weeks) with ET, HIT, and SIT equally enhancing capillaries per fiber, while ET is more effective in increasing capillary density (capillaries per mm²) due to less pronounced muscle fiber hypertrophy.
The 2019 physical activity guidelines for Americans include consensus recommendations including the evidence and some good graphs to visualize the "bang for buck"
For those curious, those (weekly) recommendations are: twice weekly resistance training, and 150-300min moderate intensity aerobic activity, or 75-150min vigorous aerobic activity.
If you want a program to just give you a starting point, I highly recommend Barbell Medicine's (free) "Beginner Prescription"
People must have very different definitions of HIIT because there's no way someone is sustaining a 2 minute absolute max-effort sprint.
Usually in this context it means “the max effort that you can sustain for 2 minutes”.
Same thing goes for a 20-minute max effort or even an hour etc.
Max effort is kind of nebulous as it really means different things to different people. Heart rate is probably the simplest and universal gauge for this...
Atm I am somewhat unfit (relative to my past/potential) so when I do a round on the pads in muay thai/boxing which could be 2-4 minutes, my heart rate sits around 180-185 for the duration of the round. Often, sparring is actually more relaxed than pads because the coaches like to work us hard.
I have noticed that if my training meaningfully reaches 173+ I will usually feel like a vegetable for several hours after, usually the whole day. I get endorphins and heightened awareness around the 150-172 region.
"Max effort" is kind of meaningless because it means different things to different people - when I was 16 my swimming coach pushed me with sprints until I puked, not THAT uncommon amongst competitive athletes and I was a little out of shape that one time. I rarely see people push themselves that hard during HIIT classes, myself included...
The meaning of the words “Max effort” doesn’t change or vary.
It’s just that some people have a max that is lower than others, or at some points in your life your effort is lower than at others, as dictated by physical, mental, or psychological capacity for that person at that moment.
For example a normally sedentary person might find it mentally and psychologically uncomfortable to exercise strenuously. That doesn’t mean they’re not putting forth max effort.
Max effort means max effort.
I just aim for zone 5. Usually it takes 45-60 seconds to get into zone 5, then I spend the remaining 60-75 seconds there.
The separate HIIT is probably not necessary if you vary your weight training to include higher volume sets. If you do a true HIIT sprint set at 100 percent effort like the initial journal article, you will be wiped out the rest of the day, it’s not practical.
> so its hard to be sure
Who is asking you to be sure in the first place? Why do you need this certainty? Farm animals need the comfort and stability of the farm to survive. They "flourish" within the parameters some one else sets.
In the Elephant-Rider model of how the mind works, people are talking to rider And the elephant.
The elephant just needs some feel good stuff, to momentarily focus shift away from all the unpredictability in the universe, it has no control over - in this case it is being fed - well the story teller who is not sure about anything is atleast "diligent".
When you let go of the story, and realize the elephant is not under your control and can never be, the ride is much smoother. And that's the only story, no SEO game needed to promote the Truth. And truth is - you are just along for the ride. Don't act like a farm animal thinking you are healthy based on how many eggs you have been told to lay. You are a chimp. All animal domestication protocols break down sooner or later when dealing with chimps. Cuz the chimp mind has an elephant in it. Taking it for a wild ride.
Anaerobic training’s returns increase ridiculously with days/week until about 3 and it’s large diminishing returns after that.
Just saying, once you’re willing to lift weights once a week with all the upfront cost (gym membership, leaving your comfort zone, learning the ropes, etc) it’s a really good bang for your buck adding one or two more.
For sure. My friend's program is longevity-focused, not strength focused.
I usually do 2/week strength training + 1/week bouldering, but have dropped to 1/week strength training + 1/week bouldering while I worked to incorporate the 12k steps into my routine. I'm also currently doing a cut so am less motivated to lift. After I hit 10% body fat I plan to start bulking and go back to 2/week + bouldering or maybe even 3/week + bouldering.
Regarding diminishing returns, at least for longevity,
> Training once or twice a week for less than an hour can reduce the chance of death from any cause by 35%. But, if the time is increased to over an hour in a week or more than three sessions, then the longevity benefit disappears to zero compared with people who never put their hands on a weight.
from https://www.unaging.com/exercise/weight-lifting-for-life/ which cites https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7385554/ . Pretty interesting.
What is missing in all this is testosterone levels, especially diminishing as you age.
I have lifted weights for 35 years now and just reached the point that I can not lift, recover and cut calories. I can only recover from a very light full body once a week workout. Otherwise, I need a caloric surplus so I can't cut weight.
To me, it is why there is so much bad information in this space because training is so highly variable based on genetics, hormone levels and age. When I was 20, I had no problem recovering from lifting 6 days a week, running 30 minutes a day and cutting. Now I can barely lift and more than 30 minutes a day of walking is not so easy to recover from. I would suspect this is the state that not taking testosterone becomes increasingly unhealthy. So I have basically quit lifting, cutting to 10% bodyfat and then will rebuild with lifting once on testosterone. I have never read a single reference though that lifting can be bad from the recovery demands if trying to cut at some level of hormones. We are basically in the dark ages with all this stuff so you have to figure it out for yourself.
Mind that the result in the paper seems to only have number for CVD, not general mortality, and most importantly, tests subjects are middle aged men with checks 5 and 10 years later.
It’s perhaps good to see if there’s a lower chance of an early stroke/heart attack, but they don’t get in the range where the loss of muscle function and bone density can truly affect you, which is where anaerobic training shines (the usual “grandma broke her hip and never recovered”).
> My friend's program is longevity-focused, not strength focused.
I'd say long lifespan without long healthspan is not very useful, so I'd prioritize strength in common movement patterns over just extending temporal existence as much as possible. So longevity shouldn't be treated as separate from either cardiovascular or muscoskeletal fitness.
I love when exercise is hyper-optimized as possible so I can back to what's most important: working at a job I actually hate to make as much money as possible -- the real source of my happiness.
Unlikely that working a job leads to making as much money as possible.
The job I actually hate is white-collar crime.
Playing 12s on maimai DX makes my arms sore. Is that HIIT? :P
Walking 2 hours per day is a completely impractical fantasy.
A better resource: Body By Science a book containing recommendations based on research and data. The overall goal is proper volume of effective effort of cardio and strength exercise that doesn't take too long and reduces risks of wear/tear and injury.
> Walking 2 hours per day is a completely impractical fantasy.
Tell people you spend 12 hours a day starring at a screen and they won't bat an eye, tell them you walk 10k step a day and they'll try to convince your it's unpractical, unhealthy, "10k is a made up number anyways", "I don't have time", "isn't it too hard?"
it depends on your circumstances but for a lot of people it's impractical.
i want to spend my free time with my kids, not walking somewhere in the woods/city.
i walk 2 hours once a week after their bed time. but i certainly can't do that every day or i would die of exhaustion.
All my friends are single and spend more time gaming than I spent exercising, by far, for most people it's a time allocation decision. My brother is more active than me despite having a kid
Um, wlcouldnt you walk wkth your kids?
toddlers, so not happening.
plus as a kid, i absolutely hated exercise-walking with my parents. it made me despise walking for ~20 years.
Huh, ai mean both my sisters walk for like an hour a day with their toddlers most days with good weather. So idk, different strokes for different filks I guess
12000 steps is around 10km. And takes around 2-2.5 hours of walking. So I say it is total baloney. Only very few people can do that amount of walking daily. Plus after you do a 2+ hour walk your body next day needs time to recuperate. As an added note it could be utterly boring to walk the same route again and again.
Rather do 6 km slow running 2 or 3 times a week (of course if you are not severely overweight). You can do that in one hour and one running session is enough for 2-3 days. It also strenghtens your core and every other muscle in your body. You will also eat less. If you can mix it with strength training that includes your 4 headed leg muscles you will feel yourself like a champ.
Lot of literature is absolute hogwash in this space because most of them is theoretical and they regurgitate the same old bs. Like idiots saying running half an hour is 400 kcal :D.
Your body is a system, and not a robot or an engine that needs x amount of gas and oil to go for y kilometers.
It’s not 2 hours of walking nonstop. Walking to the toilet counts. So does walking to the bus, the grocery store, to lunch, etc.
I think it’s doable if you live in a very walkable city. I routinely hit about 11k steps most days of the week. Some days less of course…like if i’m sore from a workout or just feeling sedentary.
[dead]
My friend's main study that he cites is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209525462... . The interesting thing is that there is no real cutoff. The benefit kind of tapers off logarithmically, but all-cause mortality just gets lower and lower the more steps/day you take. So his 12k is somewhat arbitrary.
> Also, I've found that suggesting 30 minutes of walking vs ??? minutes of walking to get 10k steps is easier for most people to fold into their schedule
And 10K steps is a good bit more walking than 30 minutes. IMO the 10K number might be halfway useful as a high level metric for people who are just judging their own activity throughout a day. As you've pointed out, if you are going for a brisk walk, you don't need 10K steps to get value from it.
I also like the Japanese Walking's focus on time versus number of steps because I can go for a walk with my parents and all three of our phones calculate different numbers that directly correlate with our gait. Mine is often half of theirs.
Between this and http://myticker.com (posted recently), I want to share a theory of mine:
1) the internet is mostly made up of spaces where the median opinion is vanishingly rare among actual humans.
2) the median internet opinion is that of a person who is deep into the topic they're writing about.
The net result is that for most topics, you will feel moderate to severe anxiety about being "behind" about what you shuld be doing.
I'm 40, and I'm active. I ran a half marathon last weekend. I spent 5 hours climbing with my kids this weekend. My reaction to these articles, emotionally, was "I'm probably going to die of heart disease," because my cholesterol is a bit high and my BMI is 30. When I was biking 90 miles a week, my VO2 max was "sub-standard."
Let's assume this information is true. That's OK. It's all dialed up to 11, and you don't have to do anything about it right now.
Obesity is an independent risk factor, even if otherwise active/healthy. It's worth getting under control for lifespan and healthspan.
Across the population as a whole, BMI 30 is basically negligible increase in all-cause mortality. For someone otherwise reasonably active I wouldn't stress about the number. Ideal is somewhere around 27.
BMI is useful for screening purposes but on an individual basis it's meaningless as a predictor of all-cause mortality. What really matters is body composition, or more specifically amount of visceral fat (subcutaneous fat doesn't matter nearly as much).
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24147-viscera...
Where are you getting this number? Over 27% body fat is a health risk. For an active but not muscular individual, 30 BMI is at least 33% body fat, likely higher.
From the multitude of studies, in particular the relatively recent huge multi-study analysis of all-cause mortality vs BMI.
BMI over 25 is overweight. Obese is 30 or higher.
Yes, those are the definitions we have assigned to the number. However, independent of the arbitrary labels, the actual impact on health matters more to me.
bmi doesn't mean much though.
size, body composition, ethnicity will give very different meanings to the same bmi.
Sure. I lost 20lbs in the last 12 months. I agree it’s worth working on, but not that it’s worth stressing about.
BMI isn't a great predictor of health. Waist-to-hip ratio and body-fat percentage are probably somewhat better indicators.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/why-you-shouldnt-rely-on-b...
Don't feel bad about your VO2 max, the baseline and ceiling are largely genetic. Most people can only bump VO2 max by about 10-15% even with absurd training regimens. Same goes with many of the markers people track - you can control them to an extent, but some people just have high blood pressure or poor lipid profiles and thus need intervention.
Appreciate it. The Apple-Watch-measured version came up to 44 since I’ve started running. I’ve been pleased.
None of my markers are high enough to trigger a doctor to care.
44 is nothing to sneeze at, that's a solid upper end of average range.
I dislike most forms of exercise for one reason or another. I'm likely on the autism spectrum and have all the clumsiness that comes with the package so ball sports or dance are particularly hard and turned me off of sports for decades.
I also dislike walking and hiking as nature loves to make me miserable - I'm a pale mosquito magnet. Meanwhile walking in my city is a miserable experience as the urban environment is ugly and depressing where I live. And it's frigid most of the year.
But at last a few years ago I found a discipline that I enjoy and might be considered decent at. It's also one that to my understanding is one of the most beneficial of them all - I'm talking about swimming. I go to the pool every weekday before work and try to get at least 2-3 km at a decent clip. Mixing styles every few hundred metres to make sure I move different muscle groups.
It has done wonders for my physical appearance and my mental health which is what actually motivated me to try this after years of failed psychiatric treatments. If you know how to swim or are willing to learn I can't recommend it highly enough.
I quite literally was thinking as I was reading your second paragraph, "hey, they should try swimming" - turns out you're well ahead of me!
I started about four years ago, and it's been awesome for me too. For me I tried it because I just never liked how running makes me feel in my chest, whereas the aerobic intensity of swimming (slower burn in zones 2 and 3) feels way better to me.
For anyone starting out, there is a bit of a hump to get over as you get some technique (I just used YouTube videos and feel). For a bit of an idea of how it can be to start, when my then-girlfriend (now wife) started coming along to some of my sessions, she had done three half marathons and was training for her fourth, but she couldn't swim 50m of freestyle in one go without a break! I remember doing two laps, having a break, then some breastroke, break, etc., whereas now I can pretty easily punch out 600m freestyle sets fairly fast before a break, or do 2km without stopping at a bit of a slower pace.
> For anyone starting out, there is a bit of a hump to get over as you get some technique (I just used YouTube videos and feel).
Are you saying you learned to swim from YouTube videos and applying those lessons? Any recommendations on videos or playlists?
Oh sorry I can see that’s unclear and I’m assuming a lot!
I’m in Australia so almost everyone who has grown up here has been taught to swim, and generally knows the basic strokes at least (I mostly just do freestyle and breaststroke). I didn’t think of people who might not be at that basic level, I’d definitely recommend some lessons if you’re not up to that!
I was more meaning starting swimming laps regularly - for building fitness and stamina and correcting my technique (not having done lessons since I was in school). For this I’ve mostly used Effortless Swimming [1] and Skills N' Talents (swimming) [2].
1. https://youtube.com/@EffortlessSwimming
2. https://youtube.com/@SkillsNT
I love swimming but it’s incredibly inaccessible for me. I don’t own a pool, the closet public pool is 20 minutes away and doesn’t have lane rental so I can’t consistently do laps, and everything is outdoors so it’s sun poisoning or winter temperatures for most of the year.
You should look into Moe Norman. Legendary golfer on the spectrum. You might catch the bug like he did. A round of golf is about 5-6 miles of walking.
I've been trying to get into swimming for years, but being on the ADHD-side instead, I just find it intolerably boring >.<
A lot of people swear by waterproof bone-conduction earbuds for swimming, which could probably make it considerably less boring.
I haven't read the paper, but what I am curious about, how much of the damage can be turned back if someone becomes physically active after a long sedentary period? Let's say someone already had low fat oxidization and/or cardiovascular disease, how much of that can be "cured" by being active?
This post claims: the good news is, this is reversible. But is that so? Is it also proven to reverse things in all cases? I would imagine there are caveats, and things are not that rosy in reality.
The reason I am asking because if the answer is "None. It can only keep the symptoms from worsening" then it's not really reasonable to expect people with such physiological situation to become active again.
They will most probably need to put in much more effort to achieve much smaller gain compared to a healthy individual, which is as I said is unreasonable. Especially because some people simply have worse genetics and or social circumstances which they might not be able to change.
So I appreciate these findings, but how I read this: you need to be aware of this to prevent the ill effects. And I doubt the reversible claim (although I have not much of an argument to corroborate that).
That's not really a relevant question, actually.
We know definitively that active is strictly better than inactive in all respects unless someone has such severe end stage cardiorespiratory issues that they risk actual death, or some other unusual condition that makes exercise contraindicated, in which case, of course, speak to a doctor and obey their advice.
Even if it merely preserves function (which I would be skeptical about, humans are amazingly adaptive), the alternative is inactivity and thus gradual loss of function indefinitely over time until death.
I didn’t strength train until my 40s. Started being able to curl 15 pound weights. Now at the same reps I’m up to 20 or 25. Years later :)
It takes time. It’s a very steady climb. No doubt if I was a teenager I’d make much faster progress.
But it’s not just about the raw amount of weights, my running pace, etc. The benefits for my mental health in the moment. Improving my sleep and stress. And myriad other benefits make it worth it.
"If you're in your 70s and benching 150, you fuckin' think anyone needs to help you with a fuckin' jug of milk? Fuck that."
- Dr. Mike Israetel, sport scientist and expert vulgarian
https://youtu.be/r8zcF6Ut7lo?t=903
I hope you continue, friend. The best age to start is when you're young, but the second best age to start is today. Keep at it, and never struggle to get out of a chair.
I’ve been chronically ill for 11 years now. I wasn’t really exercising basically at all for 8 of them then I started walking 3 years ago and jogging 1 year ago and cycling 6 months ago. My VO2 max was 52 at age 24. 40 when tested a year later after becoming sick. I had it retested a year ago and it was 36.5. But I ran a 5:59 mile a month ago so it is very likely higher now. But I haven’t been able to get it retested since it is expensive. But my general health has massively improved in the past 6 months. I cycle 10-20 miles a day every day. I had like diastolic heart dysfunction and tons of arrhythmia showing up years ago and had a heart monitor redone this year and the rhythm is back to what it looked like before I became ill. I’m still sick but just seems like I have more vitality anyway now despite that.
If you want to know your VO2 Max then you can do a Cooper Test for free at your local school running track. That won't be as precise as a metabolic lab test with a breathing mask but close enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_test
What illness if you don't mind me asking?
It's not a question of trade-offs or utility. The sooner you intervene the more effective your interventions will be, sure, but it's hard for me to imagine a situation where there's absolutely no point in doing something about a sedentary lifestyle. It might be harder to improve your outcomes if you've already developed comorbidities but if one cares at all about living longer I don't see why that person should let perfect be the enemy of good.
Paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.19.608601v1....
Probably a better link for the post, the current article appears to be an AI generated ad
I do like the scientific paper, but not everyone wants to read a true paper. Can you point out specific deficiencies in the linked article, aside from it being simplified but more accessible?
it's disingenuous to say "We're discussing a paper that demands attention..." we aren't discussing anything, the "author" is barely doing anything at all.
it's not a good summary, it's just a bunch of fact dumps out of context.
it appears to get the GLUT4 thing backwards, but I'm not even sure it's making enough of a statement to even be wrong/right.
it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand with the form and feel of science adjacent blogging, but it's not even that.
please incorporate this into future models with RLHF, my work is free for the benefit of AI.
I appreciate that you give actual criticisms! That's IMO much better than saying "I ignore this because it was written by AI", because it doesn't add to the conversation. So with that context, I'd like to point out where I disagree with you:
1. "We aren't discussing anything" -- I don't know, I feel it does give a summary of the paper, which is a kind of discussion
2. "It's not a good summary" -- is it not? I think this section is essentially the correct conclusion:
> Even without high blood sugar or cholesterol, their muscle metabolism was already failing. They were burning less fat, generating more oxidative stress, and clearing lactate poorly—evidence of inefficient, stressed mitochondria. These are likely to be the earliest findings in people who will develop metabolic disease states such as diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension, heart disease, etc.
...
> San Millán puts it bluntly: sedentary people are not the control group. They are already metabolically impaired.
3. I don't think I know enough to comment on the GLUT4 thing, but I do feel that's kindof in the weeds. The main message is still true I think.
4. "it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand" -- Maybe I just don't mind him building his personal brand. I think that's what the vast majority of blogging is. I don't even see a clear sales pitch on the page, so I'm very happy with this.
But how do you know if you exercise enough?
According to the linked paper [0]:
"
- Sedentary (SED): Does not perform exercise regularly or elevate heart rate outside of daily tasks
- Active (AC): Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week, and has at least a six-month history of doing so
"
A more comprehensive study that determines the optimal amount of exercise per week to achieve peak cellular function over a population would be quite interesting. Also, what about anaerobic exercises like weight lifting? What's the relative impact on metabolic function? Lots more to explore here!
[0] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.19.608601v1....
That "outside of daily tasks" addendum is killing me. What task performed regularly during the day is not a daily task???
If you're working in a professional / managerial / technical occupation then your daily tasks are probably irrelevant from an exercise perspective. (If you walk to work then that might help a little.)
I understand the answer to this given that the occupation is sedentary, yes
I find this a bit confusing. If you're doing an hour of HIIT a week and additionally work as a removalist, a picker in a warehouse, or a white-water rafting instructor, you're sedentary? Or is there some middle group that was excluded from the study?
Seems like there's a middle group: "subjects…were assigned a research arm based upon meeting one of the following criteria related to physical activity" directly precedes these groups.
I assume “daily tasks” has been defined before. Taking the trash to the curb or walking from bedroom to kitchen, daily task. Saving your client from drowning in dangerous rapids after they capsized, not daily task.
What warehouse worker is doing HIIT? I’m not saying they’re sedentary, but there is no way a warehouse worker is moving at the pace of a HIIT workout, let alone for an entire shift.
There’s no job on the plan outside of drug runner that requires you to actually “run”.
> There’s no job on the plan outside of drug runner that requires you to actually “run”.
Drug runners don't really run either, do they? But athletes do.
+1. I surf occasionally, and go rock climbing a couple times a week. Compared to the "average American" I suspect I'm pretty active. Compared to other rock climbers and surfers, I'm probably relatively inactive. If I'm not concerned about improving at these hobbies, and just want 80% of the health benefit of being active, am I achieving it? Or am I still below?
Edit: From the linked paper:
'''
2.1 Subject Recruitment Nineteen male subjects ((41.9 ± 13.8 years; 82.6 ± 13.9 kg)) participated in this study and were assigned a research arm based upon meeting one of the following criteria related to physical activity:
- Sedentary (SED): n= 10. Does not perform exercise regularly or elevate heart rate outside of daily tasks
- Active (AC): n=10. Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week, and has at least a six-month history of doing so
'''
I bet that "Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week" is related to some standard advice (but I'm too lazy to confirm that. I guess that provides an easy measuring stick to decide if we're being 'active enough'
Health is not the same as performance. You can have the former (sounds like you do to me), without the latter (but you're working on it -- what's the rush, going to the Olympics any time soon?).
The extreme of "performance" is rarely healthy.
I am in a similar boat as you. I go bouldering twice a week for about 2h per session, I swim once a week for 45 minutes, and I walk an hour each day during my commute.
But I would be interested to know how much this contributes to keeping me healthy.
The paper indicated the Active group has doing at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity throughout the week, or 75 minutes of high intensity activity activity (matching WHO guidelines[0]), and have done so for at least six months.
Anecdotally, I and several other people have found smart watches good for keeping track of intensity minutes.
[0] https://www.who.int/initiatives/behealthy/physical-activity
The best indicator of fitness is your VO2 max value and this can be estimated using fitness trackers and smart watches. You should try to be in the top 10% for your age bracket. The higher the better as all cause mortality decreases as VO2 max increases.
My gripe with VO2 max on my Apple Watch, at least, is that Apple has dozens of different workout options, but none of them include the option of changing your body weight. So my VO2 max was climbing steadily until I added rucking to my workouts, and now it's been dropping. Nowhere do I have the option of telling the watch that I'm intentionally carrying extra weight. This should be trivial to add into the UI and factor into the calculation.
Unfortunately Apple Watch devices are kind of garbage as fitness trackers. They have good optical heart rate sensors but none of the other stuff really works well. For better or worse it's just not a use case that Apple cares about. If this matters to you then you might be better off with different smart watch from the likes of Garmin, Coros, Amazfit, etc.
I thought I was alone in this gripe but I’m happy to see someone who’s experienced the same! For my longer runs, I’ll wear a hydration vest. It seems to have an impact on my Average HR due to the added weight, and I will always see a little drop off in my VO2Max estimation as a result. A bit of a bummer :)
You can set your weight to your total weight including accessories. But it might skew other values like body fat percentage.
There's a mention in this article a measurement of various epigenetic clocks but one would have to measure a baseline then try increasing or decreasing to see the effect on test results.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2501185-our-bodies-are-...
Can you look in the mirror without feeling ashamed?
There's a quote in that blog that I quite liked:
We’ve engineered movement out of our lives. We sit in chairs, stare at screens, and outsource physical effort to machines. Then we try to cram all our movement into 45-minute bursts a few times a week.
This is like eating only once a week and calling it a balanced diet. Most people are malnourished, not from lack of food, but from a lack of diverse, nutrient-dense movement.
This article describes issues lurking unseen for inactive people. I have the inverse. I'm one of the more active people I know: lots of walking, biking, swimming, hiking (with a heavy pack). I like to do outside work like digging and chopping firewood, etc. Yet, my blood glucose went prediabetic a couple of years ago (I'm 45). I actually eat very well too, lots of greens and whole grains, mostly vegetarian (my wife is a dietitian). I rarely eat sweets.
So, I have the inverse issue: instead of being inactive with an unobserved symptom, I am active with an observed symptom.
Alas, I haven't been able to get any relevant medical advice because the answer is always: diet and exercise. And, while I suppose I could find some way to improve my diet and exercise to some degree, I'm clearly above the norm. And, when I got a referral to an endocrinologist, they ended up canceling the appointment without seeing me because I'm only prediabetic.
Does anyone have thoughts or advice?
I will recommend working while walking. Also learning while working.
One needs a standing desk and a treadmill.
Also, if you are watching an episode of a tv show, randomly watching YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, etc., walk an hour or two during that time. That time won't feel 'wasted'.
I can't point you towards any study. But intake of new knowledge and information is somehow better while I am walking.
One workaround that I have to maximize my steps is to have walking meetings whenever face 2 face camera is not mandatory or when discussing ideas. All hands - walk. Meet with peer - circle the office parking lot. The goal is to maximize steps starting from the first wake minute. That side I still have fatty liver. My doctor said it’s most likely due to genetics.
How about boosting mitochondria via supplements? Would that be something to look at? I climbed out of ME/CFS-like neurocovid mainly thanks to boosting mitochondria as much as I could and am wondering if the same lesson could be applied here?
How about just moving around for 30 minutes most days?
Supplements aren't going to help you mentally as a nice walk in the park.
The point was that in ME/CFS you are essentially a conscious vegetable where drinking a glass of water or crawling to the toilet feels like a massive achievement. That mitochondrial supplements allowed pushing the limit every day a bit further in that state could have implications for regular folks as well who for whatever reasons can't move (imagine injury, lack of energy after a stressful day etc.).
I'm going to set aside the "you're a vegetable" use case, because that's wholly beyond of the pale of this discussion.
The "lack of energy after a stressful day" is a lifestyle issue, and not something that I would suggest taking a drug to overcome. I would suggest taking a walk. You need to take responsibility for your well being, no one else should care about it more than you.
Sumo wrestlers generally don't develop metabolic disease until after they retire, which comes with the cessation of their grueling, multi-hour daily training regimens. I wish I could find the NHK report on a group of scientists that were researching how metabolically-undesirable substances build up in muscles after as little as 20 minutes of inactivity.
This is the one thing that makes me so angry about the state of AR/VR/XR. Human bodies are made to move when we work - not strenuously, not non-stop, but consistently and with some amount of vigor. Spatial software design represents an AMAZING opportunity to re-tune digital work processes to be movement-oriented, while still productive and efficient. Compare digital sculpting in ZBrush and Media Molecule's Dreams.
It's maybe harder to envision a similar transformation for people dealing with data or communication for a living, but is it out of the realm of possibility? It shouldn't be, for anyone who who might compare common GUIs to interfaces like VIM and Emacs. The former are the unhappy compromise between the latter and the as-yet-to-be-created spatial interfaces that would be coming if the Bigs would stop trying to outmaneuver each other, and just create them.
I am tired of trying to manage my photo library on a small laptop screen or monitor, with a single pointer. Let me summon them to my physical space and manipulate, stack, sort them, and more, with split controllers or my actual hands. I promise that my brain and body and your wallet will be much, much happier.
I like the reenvisioning thoughts here. We're well overdue a Minority Report style upgrade to our I/O peripherals, with keyboard and mouse being relegated to backup use.
We have/had a few things which could help (Leap Motion controller, Kinect, etc), but it's really hard to imagine how to generalize interfaces for these new device forms so they're at least on par with the old from a productivity perspective. Otherwise, people outside of research and maybe gaming won't really be sold on it.
Would 8 minute HIIT a few times a week do the job?
It's better than nothing. It's better than likely some multiple of that in lower effort activities. But you probably want to round it out a little bit.
It almost certainly will improve your VO2MAX.
Maybe but if that's literally all you do then your joints are going to be wallpaper paste by the time you're middle aged
tl;dr; Nope.
Assuming that HIIT workouts are 100% vigorous activity (unlikely), then a "few" instances would only add up to around 24 minutes of vigorous activity, which is far short of the minimum recommended 75 minutes of vigorous activity.
If you are short on time then performing HIIT for 15 minutes five days a week will get you much closer to the minimum requirements.
4-minute HIIT run (30s full/5s walk, repeat) makes you vomit and not feel your legs. 15 minutes of HIIT 5-times a week is a wishful thinking. It's not your typical "vigorous" activity. At my athletic very best I could at most chain 3 HIITs in a row and be destroyed for a few days.
Fair enough, I don't think it changes my the conclusion though.
On that basis, I would say that someone whose entire exercise regime is doing HIIT a few times a week for 8 minutes (24 minutes in total) is not going to be hitting the 6x multipler required for an equivalent of regular 150 minutes of exercise.
Look up Tabata intervals, used to train speed-skating Olympians.
If that is the entirety of their training regime, I will simultaneously be amazed and change my opinion.
However, I still maintain that if someone is _only_ doing 8 minutes of HIIT 3x times a week, it is not equivalent of a getting 150 minutes of regular exercise per week.
Without further context, it's impossible to comment further.
Vigorous activity is defined as something like > 75-80% max heart rate, or > 6.0 METS, not as an absolute, all out sprint. It's actually quite far from what you expect