Healthy but Sedentary People Show Early Decline in Cellular Energy Production(news.cuanschutz.edu) |
Healthy but Sedentary People Show Early Decline in Cellular Energy Production(news.cuanschutz.edu) |
The problem with this is that people are sedentary or active for a variety of health-related reasons that are not captured in any screen (esp. the crude one used in this study). As a predictive study, this is fine, sedentarism predicts a lot of bad things. But it doesn't, on its own, suggest that becoming active is helpful. See also grip strength and mortality.
But there's an enormous volume of evidence that exercise, especially intense exercise, is better for health than any other intervention, including more sleep, quality of diet, pills+supplements (except those that treat an active illness/disease of course).
There's even compelling data showing that moderate drinkers who exercise live longer than non-drinkers who don't exercise. Even given that Alcohol is a powerful carcinogen.
The only thing proven more effective than exercise is weight loss really, if starting from high bodyfat levels.
(Anything above ~15% bodyfat in men seems to have negative implications for lifespan, and ~30% for women)
That sounds like a study that is pretty tough to control for, especially long term and at scale.
You'd need to find subjects that are provably capable of sustaining intense exercise as a habit if they wanted to but never did, and won't either for the years you'll be following them.
That won't work in the reverse, as people can be consciously or not self adjusting based on the health conditions you're trying to check.
PS: I'm remembering a friend who never liked running, but tried pretty hard after being pestered by their doctor and family, to discover that their knees are just not good and their whole lineage hated running for a reason. Intense exercise can be anything else, but people won't know their real health limitations until they actually do it for a while.
Can you link evidence for this? I stay at 12% year around as male (confirmed via DEXA)
150 minutes a week is about than 22 minutes a day. Like 11 minutes twice a day. This looks like a really low effort to rid oneself of the risk of early decline.
As you might guess, their outcomes improved greatly.
I think people get this image in their head that someone who doesn't exercise ever is this comically fat unemployed person when in reality it's the average office worker who isn't fitness minded. A good chunk of HN users wouldn't be getting 15 minutes of exercise a day.
The environment and culture needs to be structured such that people get the exercise they need "naturally". The vast majority aren't going to go out of their way for it.
If I drive, it takes me 15 minutes (Toronto traffic is horrible). So doesn’t even gain me much in terms of time.
Just sad that temperatures here drop so low I don’t want to walk for half the year lol.
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.7326/M15-1181
Though to be clear, there aren't a ton of studies that look at bodyfat percentage. Most use BMI and similar measures.
Likely overall fat levels matter more than %, I'd guess.
E.g. I'd presume being 15% at very muscular levels is less healthy than 15% at moderate.
(Because absolute fat mass plus visceral fat would be higher)
That would be impossible in a suburban setting; at best, one of these destinations would be within the theoretical waking distance, but without the walkways.
That intense exercise is good, and even very good for you, is proven as far as reasonably possible given that we can't run deterministically controlled experiments.
More evidence may come out that adds nuance, but the effect size is so large that it becomes obvious in the data just from observation.
You can cycle or stationary bike if you have bad knees. There are plenty of exercises that are intense but easy on the joints.
Looking around, the simplest wording I get:
> the intensity must be high. This means that you need to really exert yourself so you get out of breath. [https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2026/05/exercise-a-very-lit...]
So if climbing the stairs gets someone out of breath it's intense (and I also see how getting to your limits, whatever they are, can help)
What that is depends somewhat on who you ask but to give an example.
Take a normal exercise like cycling for 45 minutes.
If you do HIIT you cycle as fast as you can for 10-15 seconds (or until properly worn out) then rest long enough to be able to do it again. You only end up working out for less than one minute or just half a minute in total but you get similar if not better results than the 45 minutes workout.
So yes, running up the stairs as fast as you can until you feel like you are going to die would be high intensity. Take the elevator back down or you might die for real.
More and more studies have been indicating that even just a few minutes of intense exercise can outperform long/slow LISS type cardios.
E.g. 5m all out effort is probably better, or at least equivalent, for health than a 30m moderate effort.
The average person can likely hit the 80/20 benefit threshold at less than 30m/week.
With modern 24/7 health tracking we’ll have tons of data in the next 50-100 years. Problem is we need that much time to see the net effect and will probably be too late for most of you reading this.
I wouldn’t wait for the results though. Best to start moving now assuming it’s probably good for you.
First, learn to sleep on your back
Second, attach the blanket to the bottom of the bed and learn to sleep with your knees up. Use the blanket to help.
Third, put some books under the legs (on the head end)
Keep adding books until you almost slide down, get used to it and add more books.
Eventually you wake up feeling like you did a proper leg day.
Keep at it and go for isometric nucleus overload. Every 6 weeks remove half the books for 2 weeks.
You will grow enormous legs and they will stay that way.
I suppose you could tie rubber bands to your arms in stead of the books but I haven't tried that. I'm sure it will make for a memorable period of your life. ha-ha
Unfortunately, if you don’t lift heavy (or if you use electrical stimulation that’s mild enough to sleep) then you’re not going to put your muscles into hypertrophy, so you won’t gain muscle mass either.
I haven't been able to find much in the way of research on the tolerability of EMS during sleep. I would be surprised if the idea is actually feasible. It just seems like it would be such a big win if it was.
Personally, I frequently toss and turn and breath heavily, and wake up with a high heart rate. But then, my sleep quality is terrible and when I got a sleep study the sleep phase diagram looked like a seismograph reading during a 4 hour long earthquake, so...
1: https://theconversation.com/exercise-extends-life-even-witho... (Maybe not a great source but I think there is a wealth of evidence for this)
Lifting weights also increases bone mass. As you get older, osteoporosis becomes more and more of a concern. You fall one day, and the less bone mass you have built up, the more likely it is that you will lose mobility. There is a strong link between reduced mobility and cognitive decline and also a cascade of other health problems. Old person + hip fracture = significantly increased mortality, and the way to prevent this is by building up bone mass while you still can.
Source? I haven't been able to find info on this. I get resuls on nocturnal tachycardia and such. Nothing on elevating a sleeping person's heart rate and observing the result, though.