Next to your diet, exercise is the best and most straightforward method of keeping your body fit and young. In fact, a group of researchers recently concluded that physical activity is one of the best “preventive drugs” for heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

 

They came to this conclusion after a meta-study had compared the effectiveness of exercise against drug interventions on mortality rates. Basically what the study found is that the right amount of exercise can be just as effective in treating prediabetes and heart disease as the best drugs we have available.

 

This is huge!

 

Our bodies were not designed to sit around all day, so you have to stay active to keep it functioning properly. Besides that exercise also releases dopamine the reward chemical that makes us feel good. That said, just as with drugs, we have to look at dosage.

 

What type and how much exercise is best for the purpose of living a healthy and long life. Of course, one could easily think the more the better, but this is actually false. We know from studies with professional marathon runners, that their risk of heart attacks can actually increase due to the potential damage extreme endurance cardio can do to the heart.

 

But then again very few people fall into this range of extreme marathon runners so the age-old advice that any exercise is better than none still mostly holds true. So, for the average person, what type of exercise is best?

 

Basically, two recent studies found the following and this probably falls in line with your experience:

 

– People who do not exercise at all have the highest risk of premature death
– People who exercise less than 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week lowered their risk of early death by 20%
– People who exercise around 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise lowered their risk of death by 31%
– People who exercised around 450 minutes per week, lowered their risk of premature death by 39%
– And lastly, people who exercise more than 450 minutes per week only gained the same mortality risk reduction as those who exercised 150 minutes per week, so around a 20% reduction.

 

This means there is a sweet spot that you want to hit, which lies around 450 minutes of moderate exercise per week, which translates to just over an hour a day. This might seem like a lot, but keep in mind that the researchers talk about moderate exercise.

 

Example of moderate exercise include things like fast walking or slow jogging, which aren’t that exhausting. If you have less time available or, like me, simply prefer to exercise at a higher intensity you will need even less than the 450 minutes per week to see similar results.

In fact, the most time effective fitness regimen is probably one that includes short bursts of high-intensity activities, instead of long-distance running or crazy amounts of cardio. Such a workout be designed along the following lines:

– A variety of exercises performed regularly
– Some type of resistance training
– Certain rest days where your body can recover
– Optional: some type of Interval training (like HIIT)

 

I have linked earlier posts that explain each of these aspects in more detail.