6 ms·

10,000 steps a day: Might there be something better?

59 points by sjcsjc 9y ago

baxtr 9y ago
TL;DR doing 3x 10min brisk walks every day is (a) easier and (b) healthier than aiming for 10k steps each day Rob then split them into two groups. One was asked to hit the 10,000-step target - around five miles - in a day, while the other group was asked to do three sessions of "Active 10" - which adds up to around 1.5 miles - more like 3,000 steps. [..] The Active 10 group actually did 30% more 'moderate to vigorous physical activity' than the 10,000-step group, even though they moved for less time
- yodsanklai 9y ago
  TL;DR ad for "something called, Active 10"
- mrob 9y ago
  10 minutes brisk walk counts as a single "Active 10", and the goal is to do three Active 10s per day. This study compared people who did 10,000 steps with people who did three Active 10s.
- lucozade 9y ago
  The editorialised TL;DR An experiment was set up for a TV show using a very small sample to achieve a particular outcome. Sure enough, said outcome was achieved. I appreciate it's not intended to be science, it's a TV show. And I'm sure that there are likely to be actual studies that do actually show that the effect is real. I understand all that (though a link would have been nice, it is the internet after all). But for some reason I find it bloody irritating. Don't know why. Maybe I'm not getting enough exercise.
cube00 9y ago
Thankfully the second part of the headline wasn't "...you actually need 20,000 steps."
- yitchelle 9y ago
  plus a healthy diet, plus a good dose of sleep, plus ... Really need a balanced lifestyle to have a good life. No single item will have significant effect.
Clubber 9y ago
Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Just park your car the furthest from your office and you'll feel better. I walk to lunch and the round trip is about 20 minutes. I feel better after every one. Sometimes when I need a break at work, I'll just take a 5-10 minute walk and I come back ready to go. It's quite amazing.
- skate22 9y ago
  I agree, i even get off two subway stops early every day for a forced 10-15 minute walk. Rain, snow, forgot my umbrella, I still do it. I leave my house when its dark, and get home when its dark again. My walk to and from the subway and going out for lunches are pretty necessary with this schedule. Necessary in this case for peace of mind. I do however think that the surfaces we walk on do make a difference in how 'good' walking is for us. Spending long times stqnding on hard surfaces tends to make my joints ache far sooner than a more padded surface like grass.
  - piva00 9y ago
    I do the same, my commute from home to the office is very short, I take one station of a commuter train and two subway stations, most days I have enough time to kill that I forgo the subway trip and walk from and to the train station. Takes me about 15 minutes and now during winter the morning walk is one of the few times on weekdays that I'm outside with sunlight. It's that walk and then my walk to/from the gym during lunch, 35 minutes total that I have sunlight for 5 days/week...
- croon 9y ago
  > Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Yes, I think this is where either most recommendations go wrong, or possibly how people read those recommendations. You probably strengthen some ligaments and a few muscles from walking, but I assume most of the benefit comes from slightly raising your V02max. If the recommendation is walking, that filters out anyone who doesn't like walking. If the recommendation is raising your V02max, that applies to anyone who can learn what that means, and then apply it to anything they can enjoy doing, whether that is to: * drop your hat and pick it up from the floor 200 times a day, or * take the stairs a few times and only use every other step, or * put on a short playlist of your favorite songs to dance to when no one is watching * etc It's a difficult balance between recommending something that focuses at the heart of the issue, or using extremely lossy compression on your recommendation to distill it down to "do X Y times a day".
yoz-y 9y ago
This is one of the areas where I wished there were some collusion and journalists and scientists always published stories that recommend more movement than is actually necessary. I get the point of the article, but to me it seems that every time there is some new research on "how to achieve okay results with less movement and/or time" people will move less. Not that I do that much of physical activity myself, but I am not complacent about it.
- prepend 9y ago
  Evidence is important. The goal is to have improved health, not 10k steps. If you want more adherence to interventions you want to constantly review better evidence. Collusion would require that the answer be known already.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    Well we do know part of the answer. The 3x Active 10 is better than 10k. I do not have a problem with the results, but with the fact that search for "how little can one move and still remain somewhat healthy" is a thing.
- Sean1708 9y ago
  > every time there is some new research on "how to achieve okay results with less movement and/or time" people will move less Moving more doesn't necessarily mean you'll be healthier, the entire point of the article is that a shorter time spent doing vigorous exercise is better for you than a longer time spent doing relaxed exercise.
rambossa 9y ago
Has anyone been "successful" at step counting? I've been in athletic shape since high school (7+ years) and have maintained a healthy lifestyle since-- but keeping track of anything like steps or calories seems like it would be a burden, could become compulsive, and/or possibly lead to long-term failure. I'm also pretty young and have time to run&lift 5-7 times a week, so maybe I'm biased.
- EvanKelly 9y ago
  Anecdotally it's a bit of an interesting statistic for me where after a particularly active day (or a day as a tourist) it's interesting to see how many steps were registered. I'm not doing it for fitness. It's no burden since it comes for free with just wearing my watch. I probably wouldn't do it if I didn't have a smart watch for other reasons. On the other hand, my mother is a bit compulsive about her fitbit, though I see some real benefit. On days where she sees she's below her target, she opts to walk when she otherwise wouldn't or goes outside for a walk to make sure she meets the target. It's definitely causing her to be healthier than she otherwise would be.
  - megaman22 9y ago
    It's kind of amazing how much more active you can be on vacation, and not even notice it. I've racked up over 25000 steps wandering leisurely around Paris in one day. By comparison, if I don't go out of my way to get some extra walking in on a regular work day, I struggle to crack 2500. Which is just kind of sad, but I sit at a desk all day, walking a few dozen feet to the water cooler or the conference room at a time.
- blunte 9y ago
  You're not biased, but your life is surely less complex than it will be when you are in your 40s. 40 is also when many people who've always had high metabolism suddenly change and begin to gain weight. While the article sort of points at 20-somethings as the Fitbit worshippers, it's not for them. It's for older adults who let life get out of control and are looking for some way to get back in shape. That's what I see on the streets, at least.
- 9y ago
blunte 9y ago
The 10k steps approach takes an activity that people already do out of necessity and turns it into a goal. There may be better ways to get fit, but this one doesn't require a big behavior change. That approach will be more successful for more people than a specific exercise routine since it's just "do a little bit more of what you're already doing".
- criddell 9y ago
  And I always thought the point wasn't necessarily 10k steps (you can set your goal to any number), but rather the tracking. Being aware that you aren't as active as you used to be might be all it takes to reverse the trend. So if the journalist wants to ask if there's something better, I'd have to ask what the constraints are. You might be able to be active for even less time if you are willing to buy a ROM machine. Is that better? IMHO, it's hard to beat counting steps because it's a pretty decent proxy for activity level for lots of people. The counters are cheap and walking is easy and fun, especially if you have a dog.
bsmithers 9y ago
So did they compare the total number of steps in the 2 groups? Although the 3x 10 minutes only counted for 3,000 steps, the participants in that group could easily have walked 7,000 steps outside of that 30 minute window. Also, do people really think walking 10k (or indeed n-k) steps is a substitute for intense exercise?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ivanche 9y ago
  This! If you aim for 10k steps the only thing you'd achieve is becoming really good at walking. A good weightlifting session 3x a week is about 100x better for one's health/fitness/conditioning/fat loss/whatever.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >So did they compare the total number of steps in the 2 groups? Considering that between mobile phones, smartwatches and dedicated devices, it is less than trivial to do that, I doubt that is something they overlooked.
gtirloni 9y ago
Looks like they are proposing a mild form of High-intensity interval training (HIIT). It seems there's extensive research on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_traini...
- learnstats2 9y ago
  Yes: the article's author, Michael Mosley, has written a book on HIIT and is constantly advocating for HIIT (and similarly the 5:2 diet) via his employment at the BBC.
saiya-jin 9y ago
Walking is a fine mental exercise, if one doesn't get bored with oneself and uses adequate shoes for the surface. But - you can get an amazing workout by using those 30 mins doing something, anything much more intensive - interval runs, weight lifting, any group activities ala body pump etc. Tons of others more available but they require much more time. I never spend more than 30 mins doing weight lifting or running intervals (that's actually closer to 20mins). You can't start high intensity from nothing, but you can do a gradual progress towards it. Benefits will be very visible and you will feel great. Helps with depressions. Makes you stronger and live longer. Best time spent in your life.
fortythirteen 9y ago
I have never met a person who obsessed over 10k steps per day, who didn't also eat like total shit.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zafka 9y ago
  Hello. Now you have :)
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    Color me skeptical, but I'm not inclined to believe an anonymous person on the internet, who brings no evidence to the table. What's your TDEE and macro ratio? 10k steps a day is a marketing gimmick designed to sell fancy pedometers, rebranded as "fitness trackers". Literally everyone I have ever met who talks about this as a real world metric is terribly out of shape.
    - toss1 9y ago
      Here's another counterpoint for you. Former US Ski Team member, XC running, Cycling, Mtn Bike, and auto racing compeititor, still do some competitions. Used Fitbit extensively for several years until it died and I felt like I'd learned enough from it to not get another one (although I was more interested in its stairs/altitude gain tracking than the steps). Very big on high intensity training as well as overall activity level (really non-stationary level), intermittent fasting, etc. And no, I don't find TDEE and "macro ratio" very useful at all. Yes, there's some examples of what you cite, and yes 10K/day was originally a mktg gimmick, but your generalizations are crap. Also, unnecessarily uncharitable against people who are at lower levels. Better that a couch potato starts to count steps and get out a bit more, and so discover they can do more than they thought, and grow into better fitness, than be ridiculed for not doing enough. I could just as well criticize you for being some kind of idle geek for focusing on numbers I find only marginally relevant compared to HR-Max (186 these days), HR Recovery rate, Jump Height, etc., but I'll go with the hope that what you are doing works for you.
spodek 9y ago
I'm partial to daily burpees http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees, having done them daily for about 7.5 years. No equipment necessary, weather doesn't matter, no reason not to do them.
- Giacomot 9y ago
  Burpees _are_ great.
- baxtr 9y ago
  How many of these do you do every day? How long?
  - spodek 9y ago
    I started with 10 per day. As my strength grew, I added more per day, plus exercises to work other muscles and stretch. Now I do 3 sets of 9 burpees after waking and before sleeping, for 54 per day. Other exercises include planks, crunches, single-arm rows, bridges, and curls. The routine is about 10 minutes each in the morning and evening.
    - baxtr 9y ago
      That’s sounds really great. Do you mind sharing your work out plan in more detail? I have tried some of the 7min apps, but I’m not satisfied with the exercises.
      - spodek 9y ago
        The link in my top post goes into detail if you click the links in the table of contents on the right, especially "Video: I recorded my burpee sidcha". However, more than what exercises I do, I recommend the process of finding what's right for you. I started with what was challenging but I knew I would do (ten burpees per day), then added more when my abilities allowed. Some addition I kept, others I dropped, based on how they worked for me. In 7.5 years, that's a lot of experimentation to find something right for me. It's evolved since those videos, by the way. For me, at least, the important thing is to start with something I knew I would do, then to iterate, experiment, listen to others, iterate, and iterate some more.
ppod 9y ago
The amount of exertion that a brisk walk gives you will vary hugely from person to person. This is a very important point in the article: >The Active 10 group were also told that their aim was not to amble but to get their pace up so that they would be working their heart and lungs. Prof Copeland told them: "You are aiming to walk fast enough so that you can still talk but not sing." I think for a lot of people walking won't be enough to get to this state. In my experience you get a much bigger effect (especially on mood) if you make sure that you are getting to a point that you are almost gasping for air at least once or twice a day. Burpees, sprints, biking uphill hard, and rowing machine are good for this.
JepZ 9y ago
So how about doing 20 push-ups and 30 sit-ups daily. Wouldn't that take even less time (just 2 minutes) and have an even higher effect? But sure, it would take a lot more discipline and will power as those aren't normal every day activities. So in the end its just a trade about time for will power. You better have at least one of them.
- cup-of-tea 9y ago
  Of course it would. Running or cycling would also have a greater benefit in much less time. But walking doesn't really involve any effort, it's just a time commitment, which apparently people have plenty of.
- piva00 9y ago
  Sit-ups are not a good exercise, they put too much pressure on the spine and can result in injuries such as herniated discs, there are much better core exercises. You can check my source here: https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-health-sciences/hes-got-our-backs https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-health-sciences/hes-got-our-bac...
thedangler 9y ago
If you access to a stationary bike. Go as hard as you can for 30 seconds every other minute for 5 minutes. You might not see results but your insides will love you for it.
gagabity 9y ago
There is a Michael Mosley BBC documentary "BBC Horizon: The Truth About Exercise" in which they find you can get most of the health benefits of aerobic exercise in about 3-10 minutes of HIIT exercise, high intensity here being going completely flat out (absolutely maximum effort!) for three 20 second burst with rest to catch your breath in between. The summary is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEc7QFc5vIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEc7QFc5vIQ I cant locate the full Doc online right now.
jjp 9y ago
Think some of the comments don't have some context. This is a piece of news from the BBC about a BBC TV programme that is part of a wider education campaign to deal with an inactive population. This link [1] has more details about the reason that the UK population is being 'nudged' into being more active. - 6 million adults aged 40-60 do not achieve 10 minutes of brisk activity in a month; - population is 20% less active than in the 1960's - the campaign is aimed at the low active (not the fit) For more about the campaign by Public Health England [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-million-adults-do-not-do-a-monthly-brisk-10-minute-walk https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-million-adults-do-not-d...
dev360 9y ago
10k steps worked really well for me but I would plateau a lot and not lose anymore. It was also hard to find the time to put in the 10k, it would typically mean walking somewhere for lunch and coffee and almost all the time I had to run 2-3 miles in the evening. The thing thats worked better for me and actually led to noticeable changes in body composition has been olympic lifts and intermittent fasting. I try to at the very minimum do 3x5 of any of the big lifts at high intensity, and barbell complexes 3-4x10 for volume about 4-5 times per week. It helps having all the equipment in the garage.

59 points by sjcsjc 9y ago

TL;DR doing 3x 10min brisk walks every day is (a) easier and (b) healthier than aiming for 10k steps each day Rob then split them into two groups. One was asked to hit the 10,000-step target - around five miles - in a day, while the other group was asked to do three sessions of "Active 10" - which adds up to around 1.5 miles - more like 3,000 steps. [..] The Active 10 group actually did 30% more 'moderate to vigorous physical activity' than the 10,000-step group, even though they moved for less time

yodsanklai 9y ago
TL;DR ad for "something called, Active 10"
mrob 9y ago
10 minutes brisk walk counts as a single "Active 10", and the goal is to do three Active 10s per day. This study compared people who did 10,000 steps with people who did three Active 10s.
lucozade 9y ago
The editorialised TL;DR An experiment was set up for a TV show using a very small sample to achieve a particular outcome. Sure enough, said outcome was achieved. I appreciate it's not intended to be science, it's a TV show. And I'm sure that there are likely to be actual studies that do actually show that the effect is real. I understand all that (though a link would have been nice, it is the internet after all). But for some reason I find it bloody irritating. Don't know why. Maybe I'm not getting enough exercise.

cube00 9y ago

Thankfully the second part of the headline wasn't "...you actually need 20,000 steps."

yitchelle 9y ago
plus a healthy diet, plus a good dose of sleep, plus ... Really need a balanced lifestyle to have a good life. No single item will have significant effect.

Clubber 9y ago

Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Just park your car the furthest from your office and you'll feel better. I walk to lunch and the round trip is about 20 minutes. I feel better after every one. Sometimes when I need a break at work, I'll just take a 5-10 minute walk and I come back ready to go. It's quite amazing.

skate22 9y ago
I agree, i even get off two subway stops early every day for a forced 10-15 minute walk. Rain, snow, forgot my umbrella, I still do it. I leave my house when its dark, and get home when its dark again. My walk to and from the subway and going out for lunches are pretty necessary with this schedule. Necessary in this case for peace of mind. I do however think that the surfaces we walk on do make a difference in how 'good' walking is for us. Spending long times stqnding on hard surfaces tends to make my joints ache far sooner than a more padded surface like grass.
- piva00 9y ago
  I do the same, my commute from home to the office is very short, I take one station of a commuter train and two subway stations, most days I have enough time to kill that I forgo the subway trip and walk from and to the train station. Takes me about 15 minutes and now during winter the morning walk is one of the few times on weekdays that I'm outside with sunlight. It's that walk and then my walk to/from the gym during lunch, 35 minutes total that I have sunlight for 5 days/week...
croon 9y ago
> Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Yes, I think this is where either most recommendations go wrong, or possibly how people read those recommendations. You probably strengthen some ligaments and a few muscles from walking, but I assume most of the benefit comes from slightly raising your V02max. If the recommendation is walking, that filters out anyone who doesn't like walking. If the recommendation is raising your V02max, that applies to anyone who can learn what that means, and then apply it to anything they can enjoy doing, whether that is to: * drop your hat and pick it up from the floor 200 times a day, or * take the stairs a few times and only use every other step, or * put on a short playlist of your favorite songs to dance to when no one is watching * etc It's a difficult balance between recommending something that focuses at the heart of the issue, or using extremely lossy compression on your recommendation to distill it down to "do X Y times a day".

yoz-y 9y ago

This is one of the areas where I wished there were some collusion and journalists and scientists always published stories that recommend more movement than is actually necessary. I get the point of the article, but to me it seems that every time there is some new research on "how to achieve okay results with less movement and/or time" people will move less. Not that I do that much of physical activity myself, but I am not complacent about it.

prepend 9y ago
Evidence is important. The goal is to have improved health, not 10k steps. If you want more adherence to interventions you want to constantly review better evidence. Collusion would require that the answer be known already.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Well we do know part of the answer. The 3x Active 10 is better than 10k. I do not have a problem with the results, but with the fact that search for "how little can one move and still remain somewhat healthy" is a thing.
Sean1708 9y ago
> every time there is some new research on "how to achieve okay results with less movement and/or time" people will move less Moving more doesn't necessarily mean you'll be healthier, the entire point of the article is that a shorter time spent doing vigorous exercise is better for you than a longer time spent doing relaxed exercise.

rambossa 9y ago

Has anyone been "successful" at step counting? I've been in athletic shape since high school (7+ years) and have maintained a healthy lifestyle since-- but keeping track of anything like steps or calories seems like it would be a burden, could become compulsive, and/or possibly lead to long-term failure. I'm also pretty young and have time to run&lift 5-7 times a week, so maybe I'm biased.

EvanKelly 9y ago
Anecdotally it's a bit of an interesting statistic for me where after a particularly active day (or a day as a tourist) it's interesting to see how many steps were registered. I'm not doing it for fitness. It's no burden since it comes for free with just wearing my watch. I probably wouldn't do it if I didn't have a smart watch for other reasons. On the other hand, my mother is a bit compulsive about her fitbit, though I see some real benefit. On days where she sees she's below her target, she opts to walk when she otherwise wouldn't or goes outside for a walk to make sure she meets the target. It's definitely causing her to be healthier than she otherwise would be.
- megaman22 9y ago
  It's kind of amazing how much more active you can be on vacation, and not even notice it. I've racked up over 25000 steps wandering leisurely around Paris in one day. By comparison, if I don't go out of my way to get some extra walking in on a regular work day, I struggle to crack 2500. Which is just kind of sad, but I sit at a desk all day, walking a few dozen feet to the water cooler or the conference room at a time.
blunte 9y ago
You're not biased, but your life is surely less complex than it will be when you are in your 40s. 40 is also when many people who've always had high metabolism suddenly change and begin to gain weight. While the article sort of points at 20-somethings as the Fitbit worshippers, it's not for them. It's for older adults who let life get out of control and are looking for some way to get back in shape. That's what I see on the streets, at least.
9y ago

blunte 9y ago

The 10k steps approach takes an activity that people already do out of necessity and turns it into a goal. There may be better ways to get fit, but this one doesn't require a big behavior change. That approach will be more successful for more people than a specific exercise routine since it's just "do a little bit more of what you're already doing".

criddell 9y ago
And I always thought the point wasn't necessarily 10k steps (you can set your goal to any number), but rather the tracking. Being aware that you aren't as active as you used to be might be all it takes to reverse the trend. So if the journalist wants to ask if there's something better, I'd have to ask what the constraints are. You might be able to be active for even less time if you are willing to buy a ROM machine. Is that better? IMHO, it's hard to beat counting steps because it's a pretty decent proxy for activity level for lots of people. The counters are cheap and walking is easy and fun, especially if you have a dog.

bsmithers 9y ago

So did they compare the total number of steps in the 2 groups? Although the 3x 10 minutes only counted for 3,000 steps, the participants in that group could easily have walked 7,000 steps outside of that 30 minute window. Also, do people really think walking 10k (or indeed n-k) steps is a substitute for intense exercise?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ivanche 9y ago
This! If you aim for 10k steps the only thing you'd achieve is becoming really good at walking. A good weightlifting session 3x a week is about 100x better for one's health/fitness/conditioning/fat loss/whatever.
coldtea 9y ago
>So did they compare the total number of steps in the 2 groups? Considering that between mobile phones, smartwatches and dedicated devices, it is less than trivial to do that, I doubt that is something they overlooked.

gtirloni 9y ago

Looks like they are proposing a mild form of High-intensity interval training (HIIT). It seems there's extensive research on this topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_traini...

learnstats2 9y ago
Yes: the article's author, Michael Mosley, has written a book on HIIT and is constantly advocating for HIIT (and similarly the 5:2 diet) via his employment at the BBC.

saiya-jin 9y ago

Walking is a fine mental exercise, if one doesn't get bored with oneself and uses adequate shoes for the surface. But - you can get an amazing workout by using those 30 mins doing something, anything much more intensive - interval runs, weight lifting, any group activities ala body pump etc. Tons of others more available but they require much more time. I never spend more than 30 mins doing weight lifting or running intervals (that's actually closer to 20mins). You can't start high intensity from nothing, but you can do a gradual progress towards it. Benefits will be very visible and you will feel great. Helps with depressions. Makes you stronger and live longer. Best time spent in your life.

fortythirteen 9y ago

I have never met a person who obsessed over 10k steps per day, who didn't also eat like total shit.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zafka 9y ago
Hello. Now you have :)
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Color me skeptical, but I'm not inclined to believe an anonymous person on the internet, who brings no evidence to the table. What's your TDEE and macro ratio? 10k steps a day is a marketing gimmick designed to sell fancy pedometers, rebranded as "fitness trackers". Literally everyone I have ever met who talks about this as a real world metric is terribly out of shape.
  - toss1 9y ago
    Here's another counterpoint for you. Former US Ski Team member, XC running, Cycling, Mtn Bike, and auto racing compeititor, still do some competitions. Used Fitbit extensively for several years until it died and I felt like I'd learned enough from it to not get another one (although I was more interested in its stairs/altitude gain tracking than the steps). Very big on high intensity training as well as overall activity level (really non-stationary level), intermittent fasting, etc. And no, I don't find TDEE and "macro ratio" very useful at all. Yes, there's some examples of what you cite, and yes 10K/day was originally a mktg gimmick, but your generalizations are crap. Also, unnecessarily uncharitable against people who are at lower levels. Better that a couch potato starts to count steps and get out a bit more, and so discover they can do more than they thought, and grow into better fitness, than be ridiculed for not doing enough. I could just as well criticize you for being some kind of idle geek for focusing on numbers I find only marginally relevant compared to HR-Max (186 these days), HR Recovery rate, Jump Height, etc., but I'll go with the hope that what you are doing works for you.

spodek 9y ago

I'm partial to daily burpees http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees http://joshuaspodek.com/js_blogseries/burpees, having done them daily for about 7.5 years. No equipment necessary, weather doesn't matter, no reason not to do them.

Giacomot 9y ago
Burpees _are_ great.
baxtr 9y ago
How many of these do you do every day? How long?
- spodek 9y ago
  I started with 10 per day. As my strength grew, I added more per day, plus exercises to work other muscles and stretch. Now I do 3 sets of 9 burpees after waking and before sleeping, for 54 per day. Other exercises include planks, crunches, single-arm rows, bridges, and curls. The routine is about 10 minutes each in the morning and evening.
  - baxtr 9y ago
    That’s sounds really great. Do you mind sharing your work out plan in more detail? I have tried some of the 7min apps, but I’m not satisfied with the exercises.
    - spodek 9y ago
      The link in my top post goes into detail if you click the links in the table of contents on the right, especially "Video: I recorded my burpee sidcha". However, more than what exercises I do, I recommend the process of finding what's right for you. I started with what was challenging but I knew I would do (ten burpees per day), then added more when my abilities allowed. Some addition I kept, others I dropped, based on how they worked for me. In 7.5 years, that's a lot of experimentation to find something right for me. It's evolved since those videos, by the way. For me, at least, the important thing is to start with something I knew I would do, then to iterate, experiment, listen to others, iterate, and iterate some more.

ppod 9y ago

The amount of exertion that a brisk walk gives you will vary hugely from person to person. This is a very important point in the article: >The Active 10 group were also told that their aim was not to amble but to get their pace up so that they would be working their heart and lungs. Prof Copeland told them: "You are aiming to walk fast enough so that you can still talk but not sing." I think for a lot of people walking won't be enough to get to this state. In my experience you get a much bigger effect (especially on mood) if you make sure that you are getting to a point that you are almost gasping for air at least once or twice a day. Burpees, sprints, biking uphill hard, and rowing machine are good for this.

JepZ 9y ago

So how about doing 20 push-ups and 30 sit-ups daily. Wouldn't that take even less time (just 2 minutes) and have an even higher effect? But sure, it would take a lot more discipline and will power as those aren't normal every day activities. So in the end its just a trade about time for will power. You better have at least one of them.

cup-of-tea 9y ago
Of course it would. Running or cycling would also have a greater benefit in much less time. But walking doesn't really involve any effort, it's just a time commitment, which apparently people have plenty of.
piva00 9y ago
Sit-ups are not a good exercise, they put too much pressure on the spine and can result in injuries such as herniated discs, there are much better core exercises. You can check my source here: https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-health-sciences/hes-got-our-backs https://uwaterloo.ca/applied-health-sciences/hes-got-our-bac...

thedangler 9y ago

If you access to a stationary bike. Go as hard as you can for 30 seconds every other minute for 5 minutes. You might not see results but your insides will love you for it.

gagabity 9y ago

There is a Michael Mosley BBC documentary "BBC Horizon: The Truth About Exercise" in which they find you can get most of the health benefits of aerobic exercise in about 3-10 minutes of HIIT exercise, high intensity here being going completely flat out (absolutely maximum effort!) for three 20 second burst with rest to catch your breath in between. The summary is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEc7QFc5vIQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEc7QFc5vIQ I cant locate the full Doc online right now.

jjp 9y ago

Think some of the comments don't have some context. This is a piece of news from the BBC about a BBC TV programme that is part of a wider education campaign to deal with an inactive population. This link [1] has more details about the reason that the UK population is being 'nudged' into being more active. - 6 million adults aged 40-60 do not achieve 10 minutes of brisk activity in a month; - population is 20% less active than in the 1960's - the campaign is aimed at the low active (not the fit) For more about the campaign by Public Health England [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-million-adults-do-not-do-a-monthly-brisk-10-minute-walk https://www.gov.uk/government/news/6-million-adults-do-not-d...

dev360 9y ago

10k steps worked really well for me but I would plateau a lot and not lose anymore. It was also hard to find the time to put in the 10k, it would typically mean walking somewhere for lunch and coffee and almost all the time I had to run 2-3 miles in the evening. The thing thats worked better for me and actually led to noticeable changes in body composition has been olympic lifts and intermittent fasting. I try to at the very minimum do 3x5 of any of the big lifts at high intensity, and barbell complexes 3-4x10 for volume about 4-5 times per week. It helps having all the equipment in the garage.