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.
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.
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.
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.
The original reason for low population density was agricultural work, which - even in the early days of mechanisation - was plenty physical.
Living in exurbia to work and consume like a city dweller is a new kind of stupid.
In fact, if you really stop zoning, there's a decent chance companies will ASK to operate transit for you, because those population densities and no free car competition can make it profitable. This happens in many cities!
Mixed use development happens if you let it happen. Banks and developers like money, and mixed use makes way more money, so they want to build it. Sometimes they fuck up and don't, and those land owners pay the price and retrofit. And that's fine. Again, just let them.
In high engagement Western societies, where people get involved in politics and urban planning, "design" universally leads to car subsidies and shitty outcomes. The market does a way better job.
Human populations naturally gravitate towards walking, and it's pretty much active sabotage of the outside environment that has broken this.
That's better than what i'm doing, hunched over my desk with the metabolic rate of a sleeping lemur, but...it's a slow stroll.
Exception is a morning plank to wake up my core, and sometimes forward bends with a weight. I don't like to do it, but I do feel better afterwards (like with cold showers), so I do it. Harder to do with longer exercise routines, which is why I addressed the cause of my unease rather than slapped on plasters.
do you think mitochondria notice the difference? I don't.
If I cut my caloric intake, I drop weight like nobody's business, and that's all thanks to my mitochondria at their place in the chain. It's the same thing my mitochondria are doing when I overeat and put on weight.
That is even with your unwarranted assumption that all energy use is the same and doesn't cause different adaptations. This kind of simplicity is just not happening in biology.
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.
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)
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.
For best results run fast and far. During my personal best marathon (3h 15min) my heart rate averaged in the 170 range
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.
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.
Can you link evidence for this? I stay at 12% year around as male (confirmed via DEXA)
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)
Lowest risk is around 18-20 BMI in this recent study, which controls for many confounding factors not controlled for in other studies.
Other studies show slightly higher troughs, but often don't sufficiently control for correlation of weight with health in elderly people.
From this study: Estimates of mortality differences by body mass index (BMI) are likely biased by: (1) confounding bias from heterogeneity in body shape; (2) positive survival bias in high-BMI samples due to recent weight gain; and (3) negative survival bias in low-BMI samples due to recent weight loss
And if you follow the longevity/health space and studies as they come out, it's becoming pretty clear that bodyfat is objectively bad for you above a pretty low baseline.
It shows up in insulin resistance, heart markers, inflammation, and once you control for confounding factors sufficiently, mortality.
You likely won't become diabetic with a bodyfat of 25%, but all your health markers will be worse than somebody at 15%. This is measurable and clear.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/comment/bmi-we-know-its-flawed-...
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.
If you slowly condition yourself I think you can exchange sleep quality for increased heart rate.
But I suspect the heart needs rest too and you will die.
An isometric hold would be better I think. You don't get any vo2max improvement but it does improve cardiovascular health.
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.
For me, after physical activity sleeping is much easier but if i over do it cortisol wil make it worse. (I once created an exercise formula that kept me awake long enough I started hallucinating) Spinach does miracles for me, the magnesium folate and flavonoids lower cortisol. Popeye was apparently on to something.
YMMV
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