Minutes a WEEK of exercise can help....

Today's post: Thursday, 1-29-2009

We’ve known for a long time that even a little exercise will help. Even as little as 500 calories a week gives you about 40 % of the healthy benefits of an ideal exercise program that burns 3500 calories a week. And five one mile walks of about 20 minutes each or a bit faster in less than 20 minutes each will burn 500 calories a week.

We’ve also known that more vigorous exercises such as progressive strength training or interval cardio are in many ways better for you than only doing the milder exercises like walking. In fact, a recent study found that the people who did both progressive strength training AND interval cardio got the best health results.

We’ve also known that for strength training just doing ONE set to the point where you reach “failure” where the last repetition you do of an exercise is just barely possible or you can only get half way will grow your muscles and strength more than several sets of easier repetitions.

John Benson even has developed a program where you do some key strength training sets as such single sets & do them with so little pause between them that it also almost works as a cardio session too. He’s gotten good results in workouts as short as 7 minutes a day. See www.7minutemuscle.com .

Each of these facts can help you do enough exercise to make a good deal of health improvement for you in not very much time each week. In 7 minutes or 15 or 30 minutes a day you can do a LOT of exercise & get similar health benefits.

But there is news.:

You can get worthwhile health benefits even if you can only do
-- ONE minute of exercise a day!

Virtually anyone who isn’t paralyzed or disabled can do one minute of exercise a day. THAT’s doable by just about everyone. That’s so short it fits into almost any schedule, particularly if you do it at home.

Some researchers had people do four 30 second sessions of really vigorous exercise two days a week. That’s actually only FOUR minutes a week of exercise.

In this case, they did an abbreviated interval cardio exercise by having the people do a 30 second session on an exercise bike while pedaling as fast as they could.

But one set a day in about a minute of as many fast pushups as you can do until you cannot do another will likely also work.

Or doing half squats as fast you can for one minute each time or doing one set of as many crunches as you can in one minute would also likely work.

I knew with strength training you can do a lot in fifteen minutes which I do six times a week. (I do take more time at each session when I can; but many weekdays that 15 minutes of at home strength training is all I have time for.)

But I had no idea that ONE minute of the more vigorous strength training or cardio would also help a good bit even if that was all you had time for.

As I’ve posted on recently, one of the HUGE health benefits of exercise and the more vigorous exercise in particular is that it turns off insulin resistance and lowers or prevents too high levels of blood sugar.

On Tuesday, 1-27 this week, Reuters online health news had a story They titled,

“Want to get healthy? Exercise 7 minutes a week”

In a study done at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, researchers found that “just seven minutes of exercise each week helped a group of 16 men in their early twenties control their insulin.”

“The volunteers, who were relatively out of shape but otherwise healthy, rode an exercise bike four times daily in 30 second spurts two days a week.

After two weeks, the young men had a 23 percent improvement in how effectively their body used insulin to clear glucose, or blood sugar, from the blood stream….”

In real life this kind of interval cardio would work best as two 3 & half minute interval cardio workouts a week done a day apart. (30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding, then 30 seconds of rest, then 30 seconds of fast riding adds up to 210 seconds or 3 ½ minutes.) Since they used the seven minutes a week number, perhaps that’s how they did it. Possibly they did this every Tuesday and Thursday or something of that kind.

But doing 60 seconds of exercise or close to it once a day seven days a week would be more doable and looks to me that it would work as well.

You do NOT have to have access to an exercise bike to do it!

Of course more exercise than that would do more. But even so, Wow! Even I had no idea that so little could do so much.

Even more importantly, if you can start doing even one minute a day until you get used to exercising every week makes it likely you will build up to enough more regular exercise to do get those even greater results. But if you wait until you have lots of time to exercise, you may never start at all.

So I find this new research really exciting new.

What if you do have time for more exercise already?

If so, you can lose excess fat or prevent middle age spread by doing strength training.

And, it works for women as well as men.

Here’s a recent article from Total Health Breakthroughs with just that info.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

I would have titled it:

Strength training can help you prevent middle age spread.

"Put Your Money Where the Muscle Is!

By Missy Hawthorne, RN, CSCS

"I'm gonna pump you up!" How can we forget this well known phrase from an unforgettable Saturday Night Live skit! We laugh at the memory of two over-inflated comedians flexing their biceps, when in fact pumping up is exactly what we should be doing!

By definition, strength training (or "pumping up") is the process of lifting progressively heavier resistance for the purpose of building strength, muscular endurance and size of skeletal muscle.1

In the past, strength training wasn't fully appreciated for its importance in true fitness and health. Today that has really changed -- almost everyone knows they should be doing some strength training to preserve physical capacity and metabolic health. Not to mention it's a great way to sculpt your appearance. With strength training, you can also be very specific for injury prevention. However, I still find that strength training is not fully appreciated for how well it can help us preserve our health and physical independence as we age.

Muscle preservation is the key. For every decade you grow older, you will lose about 6 1/2 pounds of muscle, and muscle is our metabolically active tissue responsible for more than 25 percent of our calorie use.2 Age-related muscle loss is a big reason people gain weight as they age, if they don't take measures to preserve their muscle.

Research indicates men and women both gain about 2-4 pounds of muscle and 40-60 percent more strength after only two months of regular strength training. Although your metabolism naturally decreases as you age, strength training can markedly delay this process.

Since there are as many ways to strength train as there are trainers, it can be confusing, especially for anyone who hasn't yet incorporated much strength training into their fitness routine. And sometimes even when we are more advanced in our fitness level, we can use a reminder of the fundamentals. I have a few pointers that have helped my clients.

Strength Training Guidelines2

Select at least one exercise for each major muscle group: Quadriceps, Hamstrings, Lower Back, Abdominals, Chest, Upper Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps and Neck.
Train large muscle groups before small. For example, the legs are larger than the muscles of the arms and neck.

Lift at a slow pace. As you begin a program, a reasonable recommendation is a 1- to 2-second lift followed by a 3- to 4-second lowering.

Complete 8 to 12 repetitions with 70-80 percent of maximum safe muscle development.
The key is progressive resistance. As a muscle group adapts to a given weight or a high number of reps (> 15) gradually increase the weight by five percent or less (2.5-5 lbs) and drop back to 8-10 reps.

Warm-up prior to strength training. Eight to 10 minutes of light aerobic activity like walking on the treadmill or a stationary bike are easy options.

Strength train every other day. Allow the muscles worked at least 24 hours to properly recover and synthesize protein to build muscle.

Preserving our muscle is the difference between being able or not being able to do very basic activities as you get older. And did I mention strength training can decrease blood pressure, increase bone density and even protect your memory and eyesight3 as you age? If I were a betting person, I'd put my money where the muscle is! Strength training is one of the best things you can do to protect your health as you age.

References

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/strength training.
2. Westcott, W. Personal Trainer Manual. Richard T. Cotton, Ed., pages 241-248.
3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061031192307.htm.

[Ed. Note: Melissa Hawthorne, RN, BSN, CSCS is the owner of Priority Fitness Personal Training and Wellness. She is a Master Trainer for the Resist-a-ball Company, ISCA Personal Training, Kick-boxing, and Beamfit. Melissa serves as a fitness consultant for the LaValle Metabolic Institute….]