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After reading these articles, it is not clear for any reader what to believe about the intensity and duration of physical activity for health benefits.

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2016 - How much exercise is optimal for heart health?

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2016 - How much exercise is optimal for heart health?

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Just 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day provides health benefits and increases longevity. Exercising for longer periods helps even more, but only up to a point, as the benefits seem to plateau beyond 45 to 60 minutes of moderate exercise a day.
“Unfortunately, most people have blurred the distinction between exercising for health and well-being and exercising for fitness in an athletic, competitive sense,” says Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. “The truth is that if you’re exercising for health, it takes very little effort to see enormous benefits,” he says.
What do we mean by moderate? Exercise intensity levels are very subjective and affected by your current fitness level, but these descriptions will give you a sense of the different levels. Brisk walking is great, but walking at a moderate pace will also reap health rewards.
Moderate | Purposeful, like you have some place to get to | Some effort, breathing more noticeable; you can talk in full sentences

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Doing as little as 15 minutes a day can make a difference. Logging extra time helps-but only up to a point.

Regular exercise helps fend off high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, and a host of other chronic diseases. Despite these well-publicized benefits, most Americans aren't physically active on a daily basis. One reason may be a mistaken belief that exercise requires heart-pounding exertion and sweat. While that level of effort makes sense if you're training for a race or other athletic event, it's simply not necessary if your main concern is staying healthy.

"Unfortunately, most people have blurred the distinction between exercising for health and well-being and exercising for fitness in an athletic, competitive sense," says Dr. Harvey Simon, associate professor of medicine at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. "The truth is that if you're exercising for health, it takes very little effort to see enormous benefits," he says.

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How much exercise is optimal for heart health? - Harvard Health

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Just 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day provides health benefits and increases longevity. Exercising for longer periods helps even more, but only up to a point, as the benefits seem to plateau beyond 45 to 60 minutes of moderate exercise a day.

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Brisk walking gained the status of exercise after a landmark 1989 Cooper Institute study came to a surprising finding: that people who were only moderately fit were significantly less likely to die of heart disease than those who never got off the couch. But a decade after the famous study's release, some researchers argue that we've been sold a bill of goods. The researchers surveyed people who walk for exercise and found that only 26% walked briskly enough to achieve the "moderate intensity level" recommended by the U.S. surgeon general.

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Better Step Lively
From the WebMD Archives

Nov. 13, 2000 -- Legs striding, arms pumping, I'm hustling down a long corridor at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics Research in Dallas, alongside exercise scientist Andrea Dunn, PhD. Her studies have helped make walking more than just a way to get from here to there; she and her colleagues have elevated it to a respectable form of exercise.

Today, Dunn has agreed to show me just how brisk a walk must be to count as a workout. I'm hoping that in the process she'll also help settle a growing debate in the field of exercise research: How hard and how long do you need to work out to stay healthy? The answer is still controversial. But new research is beginning to provide a clearer picture.

Brisk walking gained the status of exercise after a landmark 1989 Cooper Institute study came to a surprising finding: that people who were only moderately fit were significantly less likely to die of heart disease than those who never got off the couch. True, people who were super fit had the lowest death rates. But all their extra work gained them only a modest advantage -- 10% to 15% -- over the moderately fit group. The study, which followed some 13,000 men and women for more than eight years, was published in the Nov. 3, 1989, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Continued

Start of an era

The Cooper study, and others that followed, profoundly changed the thinking of many researchers. Many sports scientists came to believe that moderately intense physical activities such as walking, gardening, or cleaning house -- dubbed "exercise lite" -- could provide most of the health benefits of more conventional exercise. To lead author Steven Blair, PhD, and his colleagues, this meant that instead of exhorting people to strive for levels of exercise that most of them would never achieve, health professionals could urge their patients to engage in the kinds of exercise they might actually get out and do.

Even the U.S. surgeon general joined the ranks, issuing guidelines that encourage Americans to engage in "a minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity of moderate intensity (e.g., brisk walking) on most, if not all, days of the week." The era of "exercise lite" had begun.

Walking shoes became the rage. A magazine called Walking was born. And hoofing it through the neighborhood became the exercise of choice for many active Americans.

Not just a walk in the park

But a decade after the famous study's release, some researchers argue that we've been sold a bill of goods. "Exercise lite is to exercise what lite beer is to beer. It's pretty bland stuff," says Paul Williams, PhD, an exercise scientist at the Life Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. "Exercise lite has given many Americans a false sense that a stroll through the neighborhood is all you need to stay healthy. Instead of pushing people to be more active, it's given them an excuse to do as little as possible."

One recent study, appearing in the June 30 Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Review, offers some support for Williams' contention. The researchers surveyed people who walk for exercise and found that only 26% walked briskly enough to achieve the "moderate intensity level" recommended by the U.S. surgeon general. In addition, a mere 34% walked the recommended four times or more a week.

Williams' studies at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory suggest that the real health payoff comes to exercisers who crank up both the intensity and duration of a workout. In ongoing research with 55,000 runners from around the country, Williams has found that the more miles runners cover -- up to a very rigorous 40 miles a week -- the lower their risk of heart disease.

"The more exercise you do, and the more vigorous it is, the more you benefit," says Williams, whose findings were published in the January 1997 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Continued

How hard is hard?

So how strenuous should exercise be? How long is the ideal exercise session? And how many minutes of exercise should we strive for each week?

This is still the subject of intense debate. But two new studies should help provide better guidelines. Advocates of exercise lite have long argued that you can piece together 3 or 4 shorter sessions of 10 or 15 minutes of activity and get the same benefits as a sustained hour workout -- and it seems they're right. In a study published in the September issue of Circulation, researchers surveyed more than 7,000 men. Those who said they typically worked out in several short sessions of about 15 minutes were assessed as being just as healthy as those who did their exercise in one long session.

What appeared to matter, the study found, was how vigorously people exercised and the total amount of time they spent doing it. Therefore, anyone who wants to lower his or her risk of heart disease may need to fulfill the surgeon general's recommendation of exercising a minimum of 30 minutes at moderate intensity for at least four days of the week, in any cumulative combination.

Pick up the pace

If you're a lounge lizard whose idea of exercise is picking up the remote control, then walking a little every day will make you healthier and increase your odds of living a long life. But don't think you can shuffle along and call it exercise.

"When we say brisk, we mean brisk," says Andrea Dunn, her arms pumping as she powers her way down the corridor as I hurry alongside to keep up. "We're talking about walking fast enough to cover at least three and a half miles an hour. A brisk walk is the way you'd walk if you were hurrying to catch a bus or to get in from the cold. It's walking fast enough so that you begin to feel winded."

If walking is your exercise of choice, Dunn recommends mapping out a one-mile course. (You can drive the route in your car using the odometer or walk around a track at the local high school.) Then clock yourself while walking one mile. If you cover the distance in 15 minutes or less, you're walking briskly. "Believe me, we're not talking about strolling down the boulevard," says Dunn, sounding just a tad winded herself. "And we're not talking about stopping to smell the roses."

Peter Jaret, a freelance writer based in Petaluma, Calif., has written for Health, Hippocrates, and many other national publications. He is a contributing editor for WebMD.

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Better Step Lively From the WebMD Archives Nov. 13, 2000 -- Legs striding, arms pumping, I'm hustling down a long corridor at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics Research in Dallas, alongside exercise scientist Andrea Dunn, PhD.

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2005- Some things you should know about exercise

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2005- Some things you should know about exercise

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Recent U.S. government guidelines say that to lose weight and keep it weight off, you should accumulate at least 60 minutes of exercise a day, says Astorino. But half an hour a day is all you need to reap the health and disease-fighting benefits of exercise. What kind of exercise?  Well, "Everyone has 20 minutes," Atkinson says. "Everyone has 10 minutes to jump rope, and sometimes that's better than 20 minutes of walking or running."

Indeed, squeezing in two or three bouts of 15 or 20 minutes of activity is just as effective as doing it all at once, says Astorino. Vacuuming the house in the morning, riding bikes in the park with the kids in the afternoon, then taking a brisk walk in the evening can add up to an active day.

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Some things you should know about exercise
From the WebMD Archives

Want to be sharper at work? Feel less tired at home? Spend some quality time with your spouse? How about enjoying a cookie without guilt?

If you answered "yes" to all of these questions (and who wouldn't?), exercise is the answer.

Being physically active offers benefits far beyond the obvious. (Of course, an improved physique and a clean bill of health aren't too shabby, either.)

If you've been looking for the motivation to begin an exercise program or get back into working out regularly, here are 10 fitness facts that may help inspire you to get off the couch.

1. Exercise Boosts Brainpower

Not only does exercise improve your body, it helps your mental function, says certified trainer David Atkinson.

"Exercise increases energy levels and increases serotonin in the brain, which leads to improved mental clarity," says Atkinson, director of program development for Cooper Ventures, a division of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.

All that makes for a more productive day.

"It is clear that those who are active and who exercise are much more productive at work," says Todd A. Astorino, assistant professor of kinesiology at California State University-San Marcos.

Improved productivity not only makes you a better worker, it makes things better for everyone in the workplace. Companies with less wasted work hours and less sick time end up with lower health care costs -- and an improved bottom line, Astorino says.

2. Movement Melts Away Stress

As much as it may stress you out just to think about exercising, once you actually start working out, you'll experience less stress in every part of your life.

"Exercise produces a relaxation response that serves as a positive distraction," says Cedric Bryant, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise. He says it also helps elevate your mood and keep depression at bay.

You're not the only person who will benefit from more happiness and less stress in your life. When you're less stressed, you're less irritable, Atkinson says -- and that could improve relationships with your partner, kids, and co-workers.

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Some things you should know about exercise From the WebMD Archives Want to be sharper at work? Feel less tired at home? Spend some quality time with your spouse? How about enjoying a cookie without guilt? If you answered "yes" to all of these questions (and who wouldn't?), exercise is the answer.

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2013 - Physical activity guidelines: How much exercise do you need?

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2013 - Physical activity guidelines: How much exercise do you need?

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Here is a summary of the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. More information is available on the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans website.
Healthy adults should get a minimum of 2-1/2 hours per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, or a minimum of 1-1/4 hours per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or a combination of the two. That could mean a brisk walk for 30 minutes a day, five days a week; a high-intensity spinning class one day for 45 minutes, plus a half hour jog another day; or some other combination of moderate and vigorous activity. Doubling the amount of activity (5 hours moderate- or 2-1/2 hours vigorous-intensity aerobic activity) provides even more health benefits. Adults should also aim to do muscle-strengthening activities at least two days a week.

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2010 - How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?

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2010 - How Much Exercise Do You Really Need?

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In this article the author explained that In a study published in Preventive Medicine in 2006, researchers found that multiple workout sessions as short as 6 minutes apiece could help sedentary adults reach fitness goals similar to those achieved by working out for 30 minutes at a time.
"There is no question that short amounts of exercise can help you get fit, help you stay fit, and help you maintain your health," says personal fitness coach Susie Shina, author of Sixty Second Circuits. "You can stay fit in increments as short as 4 and 5 minutes at a time."

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Even a little exercise may bring you big health benefits.
From the WebMD Archives

You say you don't have time to exercise? You're hardly alone. For many people, lack of time is the single biggest obstacle to fitness. But, experts say, you may be overestimating how much exercise you really need to get at one time. Instead of investing an hour at the gym, what if you could get fitter with 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there through your day?

There's building evidence that short but frequent bouts of exercise can yield plenty of health benefits. Consider the following fitness findings:

A study published by the American Journal of Sports Medicine in 2006 showed that short walks after dinner were more effective than long exercise sessions in reducing the amount of fat and triglyceride levels in the bloodstream after a hearty meal.

Research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed that short bouts of exercise helped lower blood pressure as well as shave inches off the hips and waistline.

In a study published in Preventive Medicine in 2006, researchers found that multiple workout sessions as short as 6 minutes apiece could help sedentary adults reach fitness goals similar to those achieved by working out for 30 minutes at a time.

In a finding published in the journal Psychopharmacology, doctors found that short bursts of exercise could help reduce the craving for cigarettes and help people quit smoking.

"There is no question that short amounts of exercise can help you get fit, help you stay fit, and help you maintain your health," says personal fitness coach Susie Shina, author of Sixty Second Circuits. "You can stay fit in increments as short as 4 and 5 minutes at a time."

The best part about that is that everyone can find 5 minutes a few times a day, says Shina, owner of a mobile personal training center called Fitness 180.

"Some of these exercises can fit into a 5-minute time period at work, at your desk, waiting on line in the grocery store, even driving in your car," says Shina. "It's not an overwhelming task, and the benefits can be enormous."

Continued

Strength and conditioning coach Jim Massaro agrees.

"This is the way I personally work out -- and it's how I train others," says Massaro, founder of the Advanced Personal Training Center in Nyack, N.Y. "It works for beginners and, by increasing the intensity of what you do in those short increments, it can also work for advanced fitness training."

That said, some fitness experts warn that short workouts can have a downside.

"The bad part about short workouts is that they send the message that you can skimp on your health -- that less is more, that you don't have to invest in yourself to be healthy -- and that's the wrong message," says Mike Ryan, a personal trainer and member of the Gold's Gym Fitness Board.

While Ryan says brief bouts of exercise are a good way to get into the fitness mindset, he believes the eventual goal should be to do longer workouts. "Whatever you think you can accomplish with short workouts, you can accomplish that much more with longer workouts," he says.

Exercise: How Much Is the Bare Minimum?

While incorporating more exercise into our lives is a worthwhile goal, for many of us, just getting up off the couch is a big step toward better health.

So how much exercise do you really need? Most of the studies show that 5 minutes of continuous movement repeated during the day is about the bare minimum to have any effect, and fitness experts believe 10 minutes is more realistic.

"If 3 minutes is all you can do, if 2 minutes is all you can do, it's all better than nothing -- but you should be working up to a goal of at least 5 continuous minutes, and 10 is even better," says Shina.

It's important to make the most of those few minutes, she says. "You should come away from your 2 minutes or your 5 minutes or your 10 minutes of exercise feeling as if you have accomplished something," she says. "There is a certain amount of pushing your body that has to take place, even if it's just for 5 minutes."

Continued

And how often do you need to do these 5- to 10-minute bursts of activity?

According to the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Sports Medicine, good health really comes with 30 minutes of activity, at least 3-5 times a week. If you do the math, that means you'll need to fit in six daily sessions of 5 minutes apiece, or three daily bouts of 10 minutes apiece.

"It takes about 5-7 minutes to begin to feel the endorphin rush that comes from exercise, so most people find the 10-minute workout three times a day may actually be more pleasurable than the 5 minutes six times a day," says Shina.

What Types of Exercise Work Best?

Experts say that while almost any fitness activity you enjoy doing is good, if you want to get the most from your 10 minutes of training, choose activities that move several large muscle groups at once.

"Using exercises that engage more than one body part at a time will guarantee getting the biggest bang for the exercise buck," says Shina.

Her clients' favorites include simple movements, such as standing up super-straight, with shoulders rolled back, abdominals tight, and chin up. "The trick is to set a timer for 5 minutes and hold that posture," says Shina.

Shina says your quickie fitness routines can include functional movements such as repeatedly standing up and sitting down in a chair, bending down and picking objects up off the floor, or putting something on a high shelf, taking it down, and putting it back up again, until your five minutes are up. (Think cleaning your closet every day for 5 minutes!)

"You can actually do 60 seconds on each of these movements, and then repeat them -- I call it '60-second circuits' -- and it works great because you're only doing it for a minute, and everybody can do something for just a minute," says Shina.

If you don't mix up your exercises during a single session, vary them from session to session, Massaro suggests.

"Once your body gets used to doing something, you don't get as many benefits from doing it. So either you have to increase the time or intensity or keep changing up the movements to keep your body guessing," he says.

Continued

Among Massaro's favorite quickie exercises are basic jumping jacks and squat thrusts, along with walking -- but with a twist.

"To make it into a challenge, try walking in a zigzag pattern, or even walking backwards. It looks a little weird but it definitely challenges your muscles more," he says.

If you are going to do a short workout, Ryan says, make it as intense as you can to get some cardio benefits.

"You need to put some kind of intensity behind whatever activity you're doing if you really want to continue to gain benefits from these short bursts of activity," he says.

So, if you're walking, speed it up. If you're bending and reaching, challenge yourself to do more repetitions in the same time frame.

Getting Motivated to Exercise

While it might seem as if doing just a little exercise won't require much motivation, experts say that isn't so. Because the sessions are so short, it's easy to put them off, or even blow them off, without guilt.

"If you miss an hour of working out with a personal trainer or an hour at the gym, there's a certain amount of guilt attached that can motivate you not to skip out. But when you can skip 5 minutes, of exercise on your own, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. ... So unless you stay motivated, it's easy to get sidetracked away from your goals," says Shina.

To stay focused, Massaro says, keep your eye on the prize: how good you'll feel and how much healthier you will be if you stick with your exercise program.

"Don't think about what you have to do, think about what you will get if you do it. Namely, you'll feel better, you'll look better, your health will be better," he says.

If you still need more motivation, pick an exercise buddy and set up a competition, Shina suggests. "First, each of you buys a gift card to a favorite store. Then, each of you must write down all your fitness activities -- when you did them and for how long. And at the end of the week, compare notes. Whoever did the most for the longest gets to have both gift cards."

Ryan says you can also stay motivated by competing with yourself. "Staring out with short bouts of exercise is a good way to establish the fitness mind-set, but you should continually challenge yourself by making your end goal the ability to work out for 30 minutes at a time, three times a week. That can be a very motivating challenge," he says

Sources

SOURCES:

Susie Shina, author, Sixty Second Circuits; trainer; owner, Fitness 180, Canton, Ga.

Jim Massaro, founder, Advanced Body Personal Athletic Training Center, Nyack, N.Y.

Mike Ryan, personal trainer, Gold's Gym Fitness Institute, California.

Schmidt , W., Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2001; vol 20, no 5: pp 494-501.

Jakicic, J., International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, December 1995; vol 19: pp 893-901.

Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise; vol 37, no 5: pp 832-837.

Daniel, J., Psychopharmacology, July 2004; vol 174, no 3: pp 320-326.

McFarlane, D, Preventive Medicine, October 2006; vol 43, issue 4: pp 332-336.

American College of Sports Medicine web site: "Physical Activity and Public Health Guidelines."

WebMD Medical News: "Brief Workouts Beat Long Sessions."

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Even a little exercise may bring you big health benefits. From the WebMD Archives You say you don't have time to exercise? You're hardly alone. For many people, lack of time is the single biggest obstacle to fitness. But, experts say, you may be overestimating how much exercise you really need to get at one time.

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How much exercise do we really need for health benefits?

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How much exercise do we really need for health benefits?

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I chose this topic because it is controversial. Almost every year research studies are published with new and sometimes comtradictory or confusing results. I read five articles published in different years of the present century

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An information journey

This week you have explored a number of ways in which you can assess, evaluate and critically analyse resources.

In this exercise you can put these skills into practice by finding a number of suitable sources that provide information about a topic over time. This will help you to develop your researching skills and help you to consider how the understanding of a topic can develop.

Taking a topic of your choice, you’ll investigate how the knowledge of that topic has developed over a defined period of time.