The exercise hack

1. Ulrik Wisloff of the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology is one of the pioneering figures of interval training research. 
2. In 2013, in his lab, two groups of inactive but otherwise healthy overweight men who exercise three times a week were studied for 10 weeks. 
3. One group followed  the Norwegian protocol, which involve for bouts of hard cycling. Each lasted four minutes and was separated by a few minutes of recovery. 
4. The other group performed just a single heart interval, one four minute bout of cycling each time they exercised. 
5. The first group boosted their cardiorespiratory fitness by an average of 13 percent, which is a good result. 
6. The other group increase their cardiorespiratory fitness by 10 percent, which was almost as good even though they did a quarter of the hard exercise. Surprisingly the group that did less exercise got almost the same benefit
7. A 10 percent boost in cardiorespiratory fitness for the average adult amounts to a remarkable reduction in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The same reduction in risk and fact is if you loss more than two inches or five centimeters from your waist circumference or reduce your blood pressure by five points. 
8. A lot of studies are conducted along these lines for resistance training. They tend to track two groups. One conducts resistance training with three sets performed to fatigue. The other group conducts the same training, but performs only one set to fatigue. 
9. In study after study, the gains are not all that much bigger for those who conducted three versus one set. 
10. Many studies show that three sets of a given strength building exercise like bench-press or squat conducted over 10 weeks will give you strength increase of about 35 percent. Conversely, a single set of the same exercise conducted over the same time period will give you increases of around 30 percent. 
11. The point is that, most of the effect comes from the first set. 
12. A similar relationship exists for exercise and longevity. For example, a 2014 paper that looked at how much aerobic activity most extended lifespan tracking more than 50,000 adults over 15 years. The runners among that group tended to live three years longer than the people who didn't run at all. They had a 30 percent lower chance of dying from all cause, and 40 percent smaller chance of dying due to cardiovascular disease. But the really interesting finding was this. You've got the health benefits of the aerobic activity even if you just ran about seven minutes per day. Running for as little as 51 minutes a week or a little more than seven minutes per day markedly reduced the risk of death in the 15 years of follow-up, both all cause and cardiovascular related. You could run less than six miles a week total and still get the same health benefits when it came to longevity in the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. 
13. If you want to maximize your training, you're better off doing multiple sets. But if you're just interested in getting the biggest bang for your buck, one set is really effective. 
14. The key point is that just a little bit of exercise provides significant health benefits. 
15. If you take a soaking wet sponge and you wring it out, you get most of the water out the first time you do it. We will ring in and out a second, or third, or even fourth time get you more water? Sure. But the biggest effect comes from the first time you do it, and whether we're talking cardiorespiratory fitness or musculoskeletal strength, the relationship is similar. If you're pressed for time or you're intimidated by exercise, do something, go for a walk preferably up a hill, do some push ups, do some squats, swim, bike, run, do anything because the biggest reduction in risk comes from doing some physical activity of almost any kind. 
16. Being physically active even for a small period of your day can go a long way towards boosting or maintaining your cardiorespiratory fitness which brings us to the exercise hack. Just get some activity in, use the stairs instead of the elevator, walk from your house to the local store. Do something, something is better than nothing. Do a little more and you'll get a little more benefit in terms of building fitness or strength. 
17. But the biggest benefit you get is from the first time.
18. According to the Cooper Clinic study, running for a certain amount per day provided about the same health benefits as much large quantities of running, markedly reducing the risk of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease. 
19. So how little can you run per day to still get the most health benefits from exercise? The correct answer of course is just seven minutes per day (According to the Cooper Clinic Study, you can run roughly 7 minutes per day and gain the same health benefit as larger periods of running.)