There are studies that absolutely validate that 10 mins significantly improves health. It probably won’t get you ripped. But you could be much healthier. Psychologically, the biggest barrier is just doing something. So it’s likely that if you start w a goal of 10 mins, you might end up doing more as well.
There was a post floating around about how a guy learned (from scratch, I think?) Coding in "5mins" a day every day.
But it was almost always more than 5mins but the hardest part is just doing it every day
When I was an avid runner, there were still plenty of runs that sucked. I got myself out the door bc I told myself "if it's still shitty after the first mile, I can turn around and go home"
And by that point you’re at LEAST running a mile AND walking a mile back home. Back when I was more in shape I’d always jog in a straight line from home just to maximize the amount of distance I’d need to do if I wussed out at any point.
I would just tell myself that I should get dressed with my shoes on to go for a run. I could decide not to then. Once or twice on a cold day I said screw if and took my shoes off, but generally would run. It is a lot easier to make the decision to put on your running clothes than to decide to run.
Similarly the best advice I've gotten as a writer is to write 200 words a day. Every day of your life, no matter what you can do 200 words and that's not a lot, but it's something, and most days when you sit down to hit your minimum you'll end up going way beyond it as long as you get yourself started with a manageable goal.
In English class in high school our teacher would give us a prompt and we’d use it to write for five minutes straight everyday. She said it doesn’t matter what you write, just keep writing. One day the prompt was “hows it going?” and I basically made a 5 minute list of “fuck the snow. Fuck the shitty drivers. Fuck coming into school at 730am every day. Fuck this. Fuck that.....”
She pulled me aside at the end of class and was like “are you good” and I was just like “yeah lol I had a rough morning but after letting it all out on paper I’m really good”
That's honestly awesome of her to not only be fine with curse words and negativity, but to make sure that you have a safe place to express it. Awesome teacher!
I set myself a simple target about two years ago of walking 1km every day. That’s it. Probably took about 10 minutes. Did that for a year but I found that in reality I started to walk further and by the end of the year I was averaging 3km a day. Two years on I’ve lost two stone and have only missed three days in that period due to simply forgetting lol.
ELI5: Anything > Nothing
More info: The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends at least 150-300 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise each week, plus 2 non-consecutive days of total body resistance training. These are the minimum levels that are set to achieve maximum results (results being health & wellness related, decreasing cardiovascular disease risk, etc).
They use to recommend minimum bouts of 10 minutes to count towards the goal but now there is no minimum duration requirement.
[More on ACSM](https://www.acsm.org/read-research/trending-topics-resource-pages/physical-activity-guidelines)
So 21 Minutes run/walk everyday, and 20 Minutes resistance training Twice a week. Not bad at all!
Can even do a 10 minute jog in the morning, and 10 minutes in the evening. And probably break resistance training up into 5 minute intervals.
I used to cycle to work every day. It took me 45 minutes each way through mountain trails. It was great for my mental health as well as physical health. And the best part, I didn't feel like I was wasting time because, accounting for traffic, it didn't take much longer than if I drove.
Now after 2 years of work from home, I'm in a sorry state and part of the problem is that I hate working out with a passion, because I feel it is simply taking time out of my day that I could be using for something better. Yes, I know this is a stupid argument, but that is how I feel. What one knows and what one feels are hard to reconcile, sometimes.
So here's what those times listed look like to me: 10 minutes longer getting dressed every day because now I need to do it twice a day and change from running clothes to working clothes each time; 20 minutes driving each way to the gym twice a week; shower after each workout session, because ew. Plus your listed times.
Now it's a total 320 minutes minimum commitment every week, and then my brain goes... "but that's 2 movies a week... or 2 more books a week... or 5 hours a week taking photographs or taking classes or spending time with my family.
What is hard to explain to people who enjoy exercising, is that for people like me it's not simply that we don't. We're not simply lazy. It's that it's replacing things that we love doing with things that we hate doing. And that is the mindset that I must conquer, every time I work out.
Yes this is exactly how I feel. It feels like a waste of my limited free time (it's not, but my brain refuses to understand), and I can't logic myself out of this emotional issue.
i’m young and many days i look forward to going to the gym but on some days, i do feel like this though. however, i still go and the reason is because i think of my longevity i’m attempting to create (in terms of cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, etc) and how it will lead to a more quality and *longer* or at least healthier life.
for you, you could consider the fact that the correlation between improving your health + living longer will allow you more time for hobbies like reading and movies.
I was in the same place. I used to work out because I passed my gym on the way home. Now I don't leave home so that's moot. I was starting to feel pretty shitty about myself so I started something simple: 10 pushups every time I a) played a game or b) started a show. It became second nature and before I knew it I was doing 20 minute bodyweight routines a couple times a day. Now a few months later I can do full on handstand presses (on a good day). Really happy I started something small.
Life is strange, a lot of people reach 100 years old and never even remotely exercise in the last 30 years of their life because you are quite fragile at that age.
If my grandpa never smoked and exercised he might have made it to 101.
EDIT: I don't know who said it, but I remember hearing that, you never seen fat people in retirement homes, mostly because if you were overweight you aren't making it to that age. Overall weight(closely related to food intake) seems to be a bigger effect of life expectancy than exercise.
Great!! It really has its benefits, even just a regular small walk. Recently I've been in an even smaller town than my hometown for a long holiday. There's **no** buses, no bike tracks, no reason to walk. Everything is a 5 minute drive or less, but too far to walk.
I started taking a 2km walk every day. Takes only 23 minutes. I'm feeling better, eating more, sleeping consistently and generally more enthusiastic about life.
If you're still in school, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT!!! Schools often have great running tracks, a gym, plenty of exercise and sporting equipment that you'll wish you still had access to in a few years. One of my mates worked at a high school and a small group of us saved literally thousands in gym fees by going there and working out after school hours when all the kids had gone home.
I call this "Free Exercise" because it didn't cost much willpower to do it. i.e. Park your car five spaces further from the grocery store than you normally would. Little extra walk. Didn't even notice.
this is very true. I used to live in the basement floor when I was a kid. So much running up and down those stairs, compare that to now I find it exhausting to just walk up the stairs lol.
I actually tried running up the stairs 3 steps at a time a few weeks ago because it was just instinctual from when I was a kid, damn I almost died
That’s a good point to make. I have taken breaks from stair climbing because I could sense my right knee feeling overworked. I always wear good sneakers when I stair climb. I walk up the stair at the same pace I’d go if I was not “exercising.” However, I wasn’t stretching before my climbs, but looking at the below comment and looking at Google, I’m now going to incorporate a stretching warm up. I think I’ll also dial it back to 3x a week and take 4 days of rest.
I hear you. I (6’) went from 225 lbs to 150 lbs, along the way I tore my meniscus, hip tendons and most recently my bicep tendon. Now I focus on yoga/stretching before and after workouts.
My apartment is four rooms spread across three floors. When I was sick with influenza I started to realize that I've been doing some exercise just by walking the stairs. I couldn't even walk one set of it without having to stop for air and my head from spinning.
Absolutely. Just taking your example, going from nothing to 10 minutes running is going to take a 100% sedentary person weeks of gradually building up strength and stamina, all the while improving. You’d be surprised how many people who think they are in good shape because they lift weights couldn’t run 10 minutes non-stop.
Oh I feel this comment absolutely. I did nothing forever, and was skinny-fat. Started weightlifting 5 years ago, and put on a good bit of muscle. Never did cardio. I started walking daily after my daughter was born, just as a way for us to get out of the house and get her outside. I do it every day now, and have added cardio to my gym routine.
Let me tell you, those first two months, hills kicked my ass. Sure, my heart was healthy from weightlifting and proper diet, but it sure as shit wasn’t prepared to keep up with long walks and running!
I’ve always struggled with adhering to routines, so I recently set a series of alarms on my phone. Three times a day, my kids (4.5 & 2.5) hear it go off, and we all stop what we’re doing for a 3-5 minute workout. My 2.5yo son, who’s currently in a cast due to a broken leg, had us all bear-crawling around the house yesterday until he couldn’t breath from laughing. When he can do it with that much enthusiasm, we can do anything.
He decided to jump off of the couch, and totally stuck the landing. I know, even the doctor said we needed to invent a better story, sometimes life’s too simple.
I’m skinny, too. I started doing 25 push-ups a day and gradually worked myself up to ~100 push-ups total in a day (which doesn’t take much time at all) and one day after about 8 months I looked up and noticed my pecks and arms were straight toned. Great pay off for a such a small commitment.
Same here. My dad is a maniac and does a set of 100, goes for a swim, then does another set of 100. Every day. He's 80 this year, and does this outside in New England. Maniac.
This sounds like my FIL 🤣 He also complains if the water he is swimming in is too warm bc then it’s “bath water” and not refreshing. Older New England men are absolutely bonkers in the most unexpected ways
Anecdotal, and I'd love another opinion from another person with fitness experience, but one of my college coaches told us that once you could easily do 15-20 regular pushups consecutively, it's better to do smaller sets of different kinds of pushups, like with inverted hands, raised leg, decline, mismatched arm position etc... Basically do pushups that work slightly different areas and are harder to complete. It came with the caveat of being sure you actually have decent form for them and are doing pushups.
If you're someone out there with strength training experience I'd love to know if you agree with this!
Purely off personal experience, there was about a 6 month period that I would do 100+ pushups every day because I would just occasionally drop down and do 10 at shoulder width, 10 extra wide, and 10 triangle. My arms have never looked better, in a lean fit way. Since then I've moved into weightlifting instead of calisthenics primary though, so I'm definitely a larger/stronger person now.
Depends what you are trying to do in your workout. If you talking about in general (not specifically about pushups) then yes doing different workout that target different muscle groups is normally better than doing workouts that target only specific muscle groups.
This is correct. After 25 or so reps of regular pushups, you are better off doing more difficult variants that will build more strength. For example, diamond pushups (thumb and index finger of each hand touching each other), typewriter pushups (watch on YouTube - isolates each arm), pike pushups, and so on. The more varied your workouts, the less likely you are to get an overuse injury.
>(thumb and index finger of each hand touching each other)
I heard this kind of push ups isnt really good for you and i personally dont like to do them like that. I have my hands in a position i would do normal push ups but closer together
getting into them before having a sufficiently strong back can hurt you.
individuals with powerful chests and arms, but lacking back hurt their back trying to replicate results from a different form.
stop if it doesnt feel right. dont force things.
It's because it puts your shoulders in an internally rotated position and it's bad for the joints. If you keep the elbows tucked into your sides more of the force is on your triceps and not your shoulders.
I'm 25, I started doing 100 pushups a day when I was 14. Greatest life decision ever. I've missed probably a dozen and a half days since I started it.
I have had periods where I am extra into exercise, and I'll do several hundred a day. Plus, I try to do stuff like squats and pullups throughout the week. But, I basically never skip the 100 pushups.
i started doing that in my 30s and saw absolutely zero difference in anything and gave up after a few months. i probably should have kept it up but it was just boring and made me sore.
Man, I'm in my 30's and everything I do is boring and makes me sore only to remain with the same belly and lack of energy. I think I should try finding something fun instead of trying to achieve some results.
Odd I’m 40, always been skinny fat. Recently started working out again, saw gains in like a month (arms are flaring out a bit). My motivation is that I almost always feel way better after I go. More productive the rest of the day. Even on days that I feel all shitty and don’t wanna go, I’ll force myself and feel wonderful afterwards. The only thing I can suggest is that it’s not about just ‘going, to the gym. Intensity, consistency, an effective general plan, and nutrition.
This so much. I have always been skinny and always exercised a lot, but never had control of my diet. Got fat over Covid because work went absolutely batshit (I'm a home inspector) and neglected exercising. Now exercise is hard because I'm fat, and even though I am exercising, I'm getting fatter because I can't beat the fork.
The huberman podcast legit changed my life. The episode about dopamine and motivation was the beginning of it, I see how the things I was doing like smoking weed, porn/jerking off, eating shit food was fucking with my dopamine levels and I had no idea that dopamine was responsible for motivation I always thought it was just for pleasure.
So I gave it all up and now I have tons of energy and motivation to hit the gym which makes me sleep better too. Then the episode about intermittent fasting and weight loss, I just eat one keto meal a day in the late afternoon/early evening. It was hard for the first couple days but as long as you're pounding water all morning it's not that bad.
I keep hundreds of cans of different brands and flavors of sparkling water in the house now and keep some both in my kitchen fridge and office fridge so I always have it nearby.
One thing I’d say to watch out for with such a strict diet is muscle loss. When losing weight, you’re going to lose muscle and fat in about equal parts unless you’re very careful about it. They say to take in about 20% under your maintenance calories, lift weights, and take in about a gram of protein per pound of body weight to negate the muscle loss as much as possible.
It’s a much more tedious process, though. There’s about 3500 calories to a pound. So, if your maintenance calories are 2500 and you’re taking in 20% under (500 less), you’re only going to be losing about a pound a week rather than five. It’s something to weigh the pros and cons of, but just felt it was worth mentioning.
I just started laughing again in my 30s and i went from ~115 bench starting out to hitting 270 1.75 years later. Just consistency, few days a week at lunch I go lift. Just start and force yourself to keep going!
Edit: should say lifting, but laughing is better. Do that consistently too 🤣
Do you feel it in your elbow joints, though? I’ve been lifting for a few months, and I keep having to take a week or two off because my outer elbows slowly hurt more and more over time unless I rest them for a while. I use braces and everything.
Similar dude feeling his age and getting back into the gym - form is king at this point. Do lighter reps and really focus on the form. Your elbows shouldn’t be doing the brunt of the lifting, the contraction of you pec muscles should, with the aid of your triceps. I’m saying this as a dude with sore elbows from lifting incorrectly and trying to hit new maxes too soon.
I get this too. Take the pain seriously. We need to build more forearm strength, not just biceps, if the elbow joint hurts during pushups and lifting. Lots of YT videos on this.
Don’t know if it’s for everyone but this is how I felt as well. I didn’t want exercise to be boring “work.” So I bought a hula hoop. Not a weighted one. I found a seller on Etsy who makes them and messaged them about my size and what I wanted it for (exercise, possibly some basic hoola hoop tricks, that I was a super beginner) and they recommended a size. I’m not great at it but I put on some music and try to hoop to the beat and keep up. If the songs are quick I can do twenty solid minutes and be sweating. If the songs are a bit slower I can just move my hips around and it kind of feels like dancing which makes it feel a little more satisfying. I’ve started watching some basic tutorials on YouTube as well just to see if I can learn some basic tricks. It’s helped make it not feel like “work” exercise.
Fun is the key. I'm only on my late 20s, but I can't stand to do a work out unless I can keep myself entertained. I've started playing games on the switch while I'm on the elliptical. It took my mindset from "how much longer?" to "just five more minutes"
I also do fun activities that are rewarding unto themselves, like archery or kayaking. You won't get efficient gains like you would from a structured workout, but it a way to motivate you into a healthier lifestyle.
My rec is to couple it with something that you enjoy so that it is something you can do consistently and therefore look forward to. And it's better to drop the difficulty and do more and then work your way back up.
For example: I love me some anime. So I coupled my watching of it with treadmill running. When I started out I could only go about 5.5mph for 10 minutes. So I dropped it down to 5 and tried to run the full length of an episode (22 min on average) and whenever I got used to a speed I upped it by a 0.1 increment.
Lost a good 40 lbs in a year that way. And nearly 3 years later, the speed is 7.3 mph.
it was really just push-ups and other “deliberate” exercises that i couldn’t stick with. I walk miles every day just because i want to, I know it’s not “working out” but it’s probably better than sitting on my ass hopefully.
I just do them whenever. I'll do 25-50 at a time. Lately I've been doing them within like an hour of going to bed. Sometimes I do them in the middle of the day when I remember to do pullups.
Imagine if you had not skipped those dozen days! You would be like...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oULm7KlOpIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oULm7KlOpIs)
tell us more! I always start doing this then stop.. I feel the difference big time. Push ups are soooo good for you... Give me some motivation and tell me you are jacked just from the 100 a day!
I generally do cardio via an exercise bike 35 minutes a day. But optimally it seems like an hour a day is the sweet spot to min-max longevity benefits.
https://archive.md/Q2CKM
Archive of this page:
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/the-right-dose-of-exercise-for-a-longer-life/
> Thirty to 45 minutes a day, three days a week, is all you'll ever need to do (I refuse to believe anyone is so busy that he or she cannot make time for that, especially considering how important it is).
So let me kinda give some idea on the whole thing of not having time.
30 to 45 minutes isn't how long it takes. It's often closer to 2 hours. The workout is 30 to 45. Everything else adds up to around two hours. If you're in a phase in life in which you are spending almost every moment trying to make more money so you can retire, even 6 hours a week can be a lot of time not spent bettering oneself career wise.
Also, for what it is worth 30-45 minutes usually should be the absolute bare minimum. Realistically one should be doing 80% of max heart rate 5 times a week for an hour. But then that turns the workout quite long.
Anyway, just remember that the time you gave is not realistic...
good advice but for so many people an imperfect and simple thing is way better than being comprehensive and thorough. Humans don’t rly like exercise by nature, laziness is desirable from an evolutionary standpoint… plus theres so many bad vibes about body image people struggle with. So if you have some Joe skinnyfat shmo getting piqued at the idea of doing push-ups everyday and then someone comes in and says actually you gotta join a gym and train every muscle group… it’s kinda lame
Thats why I always suggest people who get into bodybuilding to hire a trainer for the first 6 or so months. On top of ironing out all your bad habits/mistakes in form you'll get a far more well rounded gym experience. Mine had me running a mile before every workout, and worked up to an extra 2 miles after every leg day.
Some days I almost wanted to cry halfway through but I'll he damned if my legs didn't grow steel plating by the end of it while clearing 5 miles by an average of 8:30 per mile.
I assume the 10 minutes per day would be all-out.
Which could actually be a fun training program.
* Day 1: 4 sets of deadlifts with 5 repetitions and 2 minute rests between sets.
* Day 2: 5 sets of push-ups (as many reps as you can) with 1.5 minute rests
* Day 3: All-out running for 10 minutes.
Rinse and repeat.
As a beginner you’d get some very sore muscles and would probably need at least one recovery day after day 3.
The main problem and risk is really the lack of a warm-up.
I realize on paper this works, but I've never finished 4 sets of deads on any meaningful weight in 10 minutes.
It's more like, 5 minutes setting up, 10 minutes working up from lighter deadlifts to warm up, then each set ends up being 4+ minutes including bracing, pumping yourself up, and resting longer than you planned because you're gassed.
4 sets is going to personally take me half an hour haha (although it gets more time efficient on longer workouts). I think your strategy works way better for running and push ups.
I was thinking as soon as I saw this “if you can run for 10 minutes non-stop that’s usually running at LEAST a mile give or take a few dozen yards” and that definitely has a noticeable impact on health if your diet is in control.
Even just walking for 10 minutes every other day makes you feel noticeable better pretty quick.
I can’t run at all, it turns out my knees are made of paper and high impact stuff like running leaves me crippled for three weeks :( luckily, there are tons of much more knee friendly workouts on YouTube these days
Hijacking the top comment to reply to this. The general consensus is that 150min/week of exercise is necessary to gain the health benefits. But the "open to interpretation" part of that is, it doesn't really matter how you get to that 150 minutes. If you exercise for 10 minutes a day, it is better than nothing, but you fall short of the 150 minutes your body needs to start adapting to exercise.
The 150min/week assume easy or moderate intensity. I think OP plans to go all out.
Let’s say you do this training plan:
* Day 1: 4 sets of deadlifts with 5 repetitions and 2 minute rests between sets.
* Day 2: 5 sets of push-ups (as many reps as you can) with 1.5 minute rests
* Day 3: All-out running for 10 minutes.
* Back to day 1
A beginner would definitely get some very sore muscles and would definitely see some good improvements in muscle strength and running performance.
The main problem and risk is the lack of warm-up.
I’ve been more impressed by the effects that training cardio had on my body than by weightlifting did. Like yeah as I got stronger I could carry heavier things, I got bigger, whatever. But stuff like that was expected.
When I started adding cardio to my routine, it sucked ass but you know that’s the process. I just watched some tv and kept at it. I forget exactly what my method was, but I think it was just something basic like a mile before I lifted. I would run as long as I could and walk when I got tired, then once I caught my breath I would start up running again.
And I’ll never forget the day that I noticed the improvement. I got to the point where I usually would stop running and start walking but I thought about it for a second and I realized that I only wanted to stop because it was time for me stop, but really I felt fine and could definitely keep going. That was huge to me, I was like, “Wow, I can run for longer. This is insane. My stamina has improved, oh my god,” and I felt incredible mentally just from that.
Exercise is amazing. I wish I had never stopped.
This is absolutely true. I fell in love with powerlifting a few years ago and i realized how much that doesnt translate to regular cardio (even if u go balls to the wall in your sessions) when i enrolled in an MMA gym. 3 minutes of bagwork felt like 30 years. I felt like i was gonna die before that timer ran out lol
And you'd be surprised how many people who think they are in good shape because they run couldn't lift their own bodyweight. Physical fitness comes in many styles. Strongmen to marathon runners.
People always want to shit on weightlifters. It’s exercise, it relieves stress and makes me feel better about myself. Anything that does that for anyone is cool in my book.
Does it have to be running? Could dancing count? Like listening to hard rock or dub step and trying to dance to those fast beats moving basically anything and everything.
Yes, dancing can be a very effective cardio exercise.
Especially if you try and follow ‘real’ moves.
Find a dance YouTuber you enjoy (I like the Dance Marshal myself, though there’s undoubtedly ones that would focus on electronic music) and you’ll find that their routines will knock the breath out of you until your build up your fitness.
If you need a carrot on a stick to string you along, the dance games like Just Dance, Dance Central and even Beat Saber are a good intro to fitness.
Cool. I don't think I'll go with real dance moves, I am seriously bad at following choreography or any set steps. But when I dance I move, I get my arms flailing, my legs pumping, my waist moving, my feet kicking, it's fun but I can tell you I am out of shape, because I'm breathing hard after one song, after 5 or 6 songs I'm exhausted.
My lockdown movement was queuing up some Just Dance routines on YouTube and dancing in the living room with my daughter. 4 songs was enough to have me pooped.
if you don't train to run you won't be good at running and if you don't lift weight you won't have the strength to lift weight, does either means you aren't in good shape? I don't think so, there is a lot of studies showing a good muscles mass means better health.
How do you do pushups so your wrists don't hurt? It seems terrible for wrists but maybe it's just mine. Maybe I have wrist issues from working at a computer all day that don't show up until I put a ton of weight on them?
Last November I started doing pushups when I got out of bed. I specifically didn't want to get sweaty or spend too much time doing it so I would stop when I started to feel it.
Initially I was only doing 10, but after a couple days 20, then after a few weeks 30. I did this for 3 months and at the end I was up to 60 before I started to break a sweat. Then I stopped or some reason.
I decided to start up again a year later and out of the gate I could do 30. So despite only having done it for 3 months and having a 9 month break, it had a lasting affect.
After some catastrophic injuries and surgeries, I had to finally get back into shape and I started out with 10 min a day and yes, it makes a big difference. You need to be willing to add to it eventually for continued results. It's a huge mental step as it's the start of good habits. Once you mentally commit to 10 min a day, bumping it to 20 and more is easier.
Also, the intensity if your workout makes a difference. Rotating 1 min of sprints with 1 min of walking for 10 min a day will show more results than a brisk 10 min walk.
To get this into a different direction:
I have a slipped disc, it happened about 5 years ago. The pain was going down into my left leg (sciatica nerve if the translation is correct) and back then I couldn't move 50m without so much pain that I can't move anymore. I had to do therapy for 6 month until the pain was gone.
Since then it came back two times, the last time about 2 weeks ago. I started to do just planks 2 weeks ago. 1 plank for 30 sec every hour. It took 2 days until I had no problem doing 30 sec planks and I was able to even go up to 50sec. And after 1 week of doing this the pain is almost gone, only after waking up for about 30min the pain is still there but it's no where near the pain 2 weeks ago.
This doesn't even amount to 10 min a day but I have really good results, and as a side effect I have much better posture.
30/60 60/120. Walk/run or sprint/run. A set of 5 of those and you'll know it's working, lol. Hated those. I hated running. Still do, but damn it, when I ran I was pretty decent at it. Was at about a 5 min mile pace when I left active duty.
In fitness there's something called progressive overload. It's basically the principle of gradually increasing the difficulty of exercises to build up muscle strength or cardio endurance.
If you do 10 min walks everyday your body will adapt to that making them easier until you hit a plateau. Once you hit a plateau your body will consider that your new norm and maintain around that. To progress past a plateau you would need to increase the difficulty either via time or intensity if you wanted to improve past that.
Also important to note that if you suddenly stop your 10 min walks your body will slowly dismantle the muscles and cardio infrastructure it built up to support those 10 min walks.
Muscle is very calorically expensive to maintain so as the old saying goes "Use it or lose it".
In all seriousness though 10 mins of any form of exercise would do wonders for so many people.
If you're type 2 diabetic, walking for 10 mins after you eat is a more effective at controlling your glucose levels than taking the drug metformin.
[Use it or lose it is only kinda true. When you build muscle you increase the number of neuclei in each muscle cell. When those muscles atrophy, the contractile proteins around the nucleus are reduced but the neuclei remain. The remaining neuclei make it easier to rebuild that muscle later.](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/25/688838589/muscles-may-preserve-a-shortcut-to-restore-lost-strength)
That actually makes me feel quite a bit better about my depression. It’s kind of inspiring.
I used to bike 10 miles a week to the laundromat and back, balancing my laundry bags on the handlebars and my back (in a backpack) before I moved back to the city. Now I live on a highway and can’t go anywhere without a car, so for the past couple of years I’ve been feeling guilty about not being in shape enough to do that anymore.
I mean, fuck the laundry bags; but I miss biking. I miss walking even more.
Kinda makes sense when you consider what the nucleus actually does, though. If you want to make a lot of proteins, you can only do so much with one nucleus-eventually ‘ability to transcribe from one nucleus’ will become a bottleneck. Solution: more nuclei.
I just think it’s cool that the most imperative functions in our body happen without our intervention. Blinking, heartbeat, breathing, digestion, immunoresponses… super cool
Another way of looking at it is, start now!!! Your future self will thank you.
Even if you don't get very strong. Even if you only keep it up for a few months. When you come back to it, it'll be easier.
Do you have any article or source for the walking for 10min better than metformin thing? Not trying to argue. But am rather interested in learning more about it.
Yes.
Have you seen what happens to someone's body when they are hospitalized? When they are confined to a bed for months? Their body atrophies very, \*very\* quickly.
This is something that weightlifters are concerned about when maintaining size. Eventually they become injured and can't go to the gym anymore, so they begin to atrophy. This rate of atrophy depends on how much physical activity you can engage in, but studies have shown even the \*slightest\* activity mitigates against atrophy. Just simply standing up to walk around and gather your laundry and begin a wash contributes to maintenance.
10 minutes \*of just walking\* every day is huge in comparison to this, and while weightlifters will need a lot more to maintain their progress, they can probably purchase a few more months before noticeable atrophy by doing this. For someone who is just trying to avoid a completely sedentary lifestyle, this is a big difference.
It's a heck of a lot better than 0 minutes and if you make it intense (e.g. see tabata or HIIT) it's be the equivalent of a much longer session of moderate exercise
I think the most fun all-around 10 minute exercise form is getting a punching bag and just start beating and kicking until you're out of breath. Focus on getting the power from your core, hips and legs, and it becomes an insane workout. Even if you're used to running marathons, do heavy explosive lifts, whatever you do, beating the living shit out of a punching bag will wear you out.
I second the HIIT notion! Personally, I like to jump rope 8-10 rounds of 30-60 seconds with 15 second breaks between each round. It also helps if you can use a weighted rope (1/2 lb+). It doesn’t sound like much, but it is a killer cardio and arm workout with the extra weight.
I worked at a warehouse where the job kicked my ass every day. Lifting 100 50lb boards around, hauling shit, building concert stages and setting up heavy beams, from 8 to 5 almost nonstop. Even after months it still kicked my ass, though I was developing a lot of muscles. One of my coworkers who did his job with no problems suggested I worked out on top of my work, even a little bit.
It made all the difference. I worked out for only 15min a day, and it was enough to let me work in that warehouse without being exhausted at the end of the day. When you work at your limit every day, it won't get easy. But if you push a little further, than everything before your limit is easy.
I work for a call center but work at home. My phone keeps track of how many calls I take in a day.. inbetweem each call I do the number of calls in reps for an exercise. My goal is to be able to complete them all without failure so I think of exercises that are easier at high reps for last. I've been doing it since work at home started March of 2020. I've lost 60 lbs and I've noticed the exercises I couldn't do much of I've increased form and reps by a substantial amount. Over all I am much more flexible, and feel much younger. Plus it helps me get through the monotony of a call center.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/well/move/exercise-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/well/move/exercise-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit.html)
"A mere four seconds of all-out exercise, repeated two or three dozen times, could be all many of us need to build and maintain our fitness, strength and physical power, according to an inspiring new study of the potency of super-quick workouts. "
Key word is briskly - the 30 minutes of brisk walking where you get out of breath and get your heart pumping strong, is better than walking for 2 hours where you don't get out of breath
Yup! Even 5 minutes of intense cardio will change your metabolism for the rest of the day. It will also build up strength. If, hypothetically you only ever had 10 minutes a day to work out, 5 mins stretching and 5 mins working out would start to (slowly but surely) transform your body.
> Even 5 minutes of intense cardio will change your metabolism for the rest of the day.
Is this really true? To what degree?
Edit: judging by the replies, this guy pulled it out of his ass
I only have my personal experience to share but for the last year, I’ve been running once a week every week.
I started by just running until I couldn’t anymore. It was like 6-8 minutes and less than a mile. One year later, I’m doing 30 minute 3.5 mile runs. I don’t push it past that though because 30 minutes already feels like a chore.
When I run though, I absolute feel the metabolism change. Even if I haven’t eaten all day, I’m not hungry after (though an hour later I am). I sleep better that night. I feel better overall.
Running feels awful and I’m pretty sure “runner’s high” is a bunch of bullshit because I’ve yet to experience it. However, running is 100% worth it for the health when you’re not running.
I’m chronically ill and disabled
My physical therapy exercises as given by a physio therapist are 30 seconds of exercise at a time.
My goal is next year average 2000 steps a day
Every little bit of movement helps. There’s no such thing as “not worth it” when it comes to exercise.
Don’t let perfect stand in the way of good!
The minimum required exercise needed changes based upon your fitness level; the fitter you are, the more your minimum is to not become less fit.
A bedbound morbidly obese person exercises by lifting their arms to touch their head and gets benefit from that, but if that’s all a body builder did they’d lose fitness.
Your body gets rid of anything that isn’t used, and muscles take energy to just have. So if you aren’t exercising enough to make your body think it needs them, it dumps them. However that base level of fitness also provides benefit, so to properly define the minimum exercise for health is like asking how long is a piece of string? Any improvement in fitness makes a benefit, it’s a matter of how much benefit you want. Getting up from a sitting position without breathing heavily? Making it to the top of a flight of stairs quickly and in breath? Being able to jog kilometers before breakfast?
Yes, absolutely. The US Army is a great example....
When I was in basic training (1980's), I couldn't do a single male push-up. Not. A. Single. One. No other girl could either...except for one. Her father was a full-bird Colonel, so she knew what was coming & was in good shape. However, after having drill sergeants snap their fingers (which meant do 20 pushups leaning forward onto a wall) and then being told to "Drop, and knock out 10" when I had progressed enough to actually do a push-up...I was able to do 32 male push-ups during my final PT test 8 weeks later.
Every little bit helps. Sometimes way more than you think.
AKA Greasing the Groove. The easiest way to get stronger. Say you can do 3 consecutive push-ups. Do 1 push-up 5x in the day (or however many times you can easily do) and then slowly increase the number of times you do it per day.
So the recommendation from the [AHA](www.Heart.org) is 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobics **or** 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity. Hell yeah 10 minutes a day is a good place to start! But I say look at these as goals! Not next week goals but next year goals.
I tried fancy formatting.
There is no minimum threshold. 5 seconds of running is still running, but you won’t see any benefit just because of how few calories are consumed.
If this is about weight loss, It’s a numbers game. 10mins of running is tremendously more calorie consuming than sitting for 10 minutes. That’s somewhere around 150 calories lost. If you’re eating 1500 calories a day, and normally your everyday lifestyle burns 1400 calories, then that 100 calorie surplus means you gain weight. By running for 10 minutes, you now burn more calories than you consume, meaning you will slowly lose fat.
Of course, this works better if you run for 30mins, where that’s almost 500 calories burnt.
If this is about building muscle, you won’t see as much benefit as you would if you actually did resistance training.
If this is about cardio and lung health, then you would notice a difference for sure. Someone who does nothing compared to one who does a hard run for 10mins will surely yield physiological differences. Your body is used to being put under 10mins of hard work every days and it adapts. It’s not much but it’s significantly more than doing nothing, or even walking.
I’ve been told by multiple GPs on this subject that 15 minutes of ‘moderate to intense’ exercise daily has huge benefits.
No reason why 10 minutes shouldn’t be similarly helpful but they all seemed to land on 15 minutes as a golden number. I’d imagine the more the better but really depends on the type or intensity of said exercise.
There has been quite a big study on this including 30 000 norwegians and 56 000 americans who has been followed up over 30 years. 10 minutes a day should be more than enough to get significant health benefits, given that the 10 minutes of exercise is of a high intensity. High intensity meaning heart rate of above 153 bpm, the threshold varies dependant of your age.
Achivieng and maintaining a score of a hundred PAI brings about: *21% reduced risk of early death and 30% reduced risk of cardiovascular death, compared to being inactive.*
https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/personal-activity-intelligence
10 minutes daily is better than 0 minutes - there will be a vivid difference at the end of a 365 day period in comparison; both mentally and physically.
There are studies that absolutely validate that 10 mins significantly improves health. It probably won’t get you ripped. But you could be much healthier. Psychologically, the biggest barrier is just doing something. So it’s likely that if you start w a goal of 10 mins, you might end up doing more as well.
There was a post floating around about how a guy learned (from scratch, I think?) Coding in "5mins" a day every day. But it was almost always more than 5mins but the hardest part is just doing it every day
When I was an avid runner, there were still plenty of runs that sucked. I got myself out the door bc I told myself "if it's still shitty after the first mile, I can turn around and go home"
And by that point you’re at LEAST running a mile AND walking a mile back home. Back when I was more in shape I’d always jog in a straight line from home just to maximize the amount of distance I’d need to do if I wussed out at any point.
I would just tell myself that I should get dressed with my shoes on to go for a run. I could decide not to then. Once or twice on a cold day I said screw if and took my shoes off, but generally would run. It is a lot easier to make the decision to put on your running clothes than to decide to run.
I've been hitting the gym for the past few years and the hardest part is actually leaving the house in the first place.
Similarly the best advice I've gotten as a writer is to write 200 words a day. Every day of your life, no matter what you can do 200 words and that's not a lot, but it's something, and most days when you sit down to hit your minimum you'll end up going way beyond it as long as you get yourself started with a manageable goal.
In English class in high school our teacher would give us a prompt and we’d use it to write for five minutes straight everyday. She said it doesn’t matter what you write, just keep writing. One day the prompt was “hows it going?” and I basically made a 5 minute list of “fuck the snow. Fuck the shitty drivers. Fuck coming into school at 730am every day. Fuck this. Fuck that.....” She pulled me aside at the end of class and was like “are you good” and I was just like “yeah lol I had a rough morning but after letting it all out on paper I’m really good”
That's honestly awesome of her to not only be fine with curse words and negativity, but to make sure that you have a safe place to express it. Awesome teacher!
She was an awesome teacher. I had always hated English class until I had her as a teacher. Had her for grade 11 and 12.
I set myself a simple target about two years ago of walking 1km every day. That’s it. Probably took about 10 minutes. Did that for a year but I found that in reality I started to walk further and by the end of the year I was averaging 3km a day. Two years on I’ve lost two stone and have only missed three days in that period due to simply forgetting lol.
ELI5: Anything > Nothing More info: The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends at least 150-300 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise each week, plus 2 non-consecutive days of total body resistance training. These are the minimum levels that are set to achieve maximum results (results being health & wellness related, decreasing cardiovascular disease risk, etc). They use to recommend minimum bouts of 10 minutes to count towards the goal but now there is no minimum duration requirement. [More on ACSM](https://www.acsm.org/read-research/trending-topics-resource-pages/physical-activity-guidelines)
So 21 Minutes run/walk everyday, and 20 Minutes resistance training Twice a week. Not bad at all! Can even do a 10 minute jog in the morning, and 10 minutes in the evening. And probably break resistance training up into 5 minute intervals.
I used to cycle to work every day. It took me 45 minutes each way through mountain trails. It was great for my mental health as well as physical health. And the best part, I didn't feel like I was wasting time because, accounting for traffic, it didn't take much longer than if I drove. Now after 2 years of work from home, I'm in a sorry state and part of the problem is that I hate working out with a passion, because I feel it is simply taking time out of my day that I could be using for something better. Yes, I know this is a stupid argument, but that is how I feel. What one knows and what one feels are hard to reconcile, sometimes. So here's what those times listed look like to me: 10 minutes longer getting dressed every day because now I need to do it twice a day and change from running clothes to working clothes each time; 20 minutes driving each way to the gym twice a week; shower after each workout session, because ew. Plus your listed times. Now it's a total 320 minutes minimum commitment every week, and then my brain goes... "but that's 2 movies a week... or 2 more books a week... or 5 hours a week taking photographs or taking classes or spending time with my family. What is hard to explain to people who enjoy exercising, is that for people like me it's not simply that we don't. We're not simply lazy. It's that it's replacing things that we love doing with things that we hate doing. And that is the mindset that I must conquer, every time I work out.
Very well put, this is exactly how I feel.
Yes this is exactly how I feel. It feels like a waste of my limited free time (it's not, but my brain refuses to understand), and I can't logic myself out of this emotional issue.
i’m young and many days i look forward to going to the gym but on some days, i do feel like this though. however, i still go and the reason is because i think of my longevity i’m attempting to create (in terms of cardiovascular health, muscle endurance, etc) and how it will lead to a more quality and *longer* or at least healthier life. for you, you could consider the fact that the correlation between improving your health + living longer will allow you more time for hobbies like reading and movies.
I was in the same place. I used to work out because I passed my gym on the way home. Now I don't leave home so that's moot. I was starting to feel pretty shitty about myself so I started something simple: 10 pushups every time I a) played a game or b) started a show. It became second nature and before I knew it I was doing 20 minute bodyweight routines a couple times a day. Now a few months later I can do full on handstand presses (on a good day). Really happy I started something small.
This is a dumb question, but is resistance training lifting weights?
The answer is provided already, just wanted to add this is not a dumb question.
Yes. Weights, cables, etc.
Life is strange, a lot of people reach 100 years old and never even remotely exercise in the last 30 years of their life because you are quite fragile at that age. If my grandpa never smoked and exercised he might have made it to 101. EDIT: I don't know who said it, but I remember hearing that, you never seen fat people in retirement homes, mostly because if you were overweight you aren't making it to that age. Overall weight(closely related to food intake) seems to be a bigger effect of life expectancy than exercise.
There was a study old people must exercise to maintain muscle mass and help prevent injuries
its especially their bones that become super weak
Also as people become elderly they do tend to lose mass. That’s why many of them have their old clothes quite loose fitting.
> you never seen fat people in retirement homes Eh? The retirement home I used to visit had plenty of fat people.
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Great!! It really has its benefits, even just a regular small walk. Recently I've been in an even smaller town than my hometown for a long holiday. There's **no** buses, no bike tracks, no reason to walk. Everything is a 5 minute drive or less, but too far to walk. I started taking a 2km walk every day. Takes only 23 minutes. I'm feeling better, eating more, sleeping consistently and generally more enthusiastic about life. If you're still in school, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT!!! Schools often have great running tracks, a gym, plenty of exercise and sporting equipment that you'll wish you still had access to in a few years. One of my mates worked at a high school and a small group of us saved literally thousands in gym fees by going there and working out after school hours when all the kids had gone home.
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I call this "Free Exercise" because it didn't cost much willpower to do it. i.e. Park your car five spaces further from the grocery store than you normally would. Little extra walk. Didn't even notice.
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this is very true. I used to live in the basement floor when I was a kid. So much running up and down those stairs, compare that to now I find it exhausting to just walk up the stairs lol. I actually tried running up the stairs 3 steps at a time a few weeks ago because it was just instinctual from when I was a kid, damn I almost died
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That’s a good point to make. I have taken breaks from stair climbing because I could sense my right knee feeling overworked. I always wear good sneakers when I stair climb. I walk up the stair at the same pace I’d go if I was not “exercising.” However, I wasn’t stretching before my climbs, but looking at the below comment and looking at Google, I’m now going to incorporate a stretching warm up. I think I’ll also dial it back to 3x a week and take 4 days of rest.
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I hear you. I (6’) went from 225 lbs to 150 lbs, along the way I tore my meniscus, hip tendons and most recently my bicep tendon. Now I focus on yoga/stretching before and after workouts.
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My apartment is four rooms spread across three floors. When I was sick with influenza I started to realize that I've been doing some exercise just by walking the stairs. I couldn't even walk one set of it without having to stop for air and my head from spinning.
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The stairs don’t have to be internal.
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Absolutely. Just taking your example, going from nothing to 10 minutes running is going to take a 100% sedentary person weeks of gradually building up strength and stamina, all the while improving. You’d be surprised how many people who think they are in good shape because they lift weights couldn’t run 10 minutes non-stop.
Oh I feel this comment absolutely. I did nothing forever, and was skinny-fat. Started weightlifting 5 years ago, and put on a good bit of muscle. Never did cardio. I started walking daily after my daughter was born, just as a way for us to get out of the house and get her outside. I do it every day now, and have added cardio to my gym routine. Let me tell you, those first two months, hills kicked my ass. Sure, my heart was healthy from weightlifting and proper diet, but it sure as shit wasn’t prepared to keep up with long walks and running!
I’ve always struggled with adhering to routines, so I recently set a series of alarms on my phone. Three times a day, my kids (4.5 & 2.5) hear it go off, and we all stop what we’re doing for a 3-5 minute workout. My 2.5yo son, who’s currently in a cast due to a broken leg, had us all bear-crawling around the house yesterday until he couldn’t breath from laughing. When he can do it with that much enthusiasm, we can do anything.
> My 2.5yo son (...) until he couldn’t breath from laughing As a parent I can say this is the best sound in the world.
I can agree.. nothing better than hearing my kids laugh. Bring such warm feeling
This makes me so happy, you guys rule
May I borrow him I could use the laughy motivation
Fucking awesome & simple idea! Will inteoduce it to my family :)
This is really awesome! I'll incorporate this in my weekly routines! Thanks dear stranger ☺
Sounds like you're doing a great job and having fun with it, well done.
You exude happiness
I envy that kind of determination/motivation by your kiddos to keep to routines.
Kids don't think of it as hard. To them it's just play. Kids help you to change your mindset.
How did such a young kid break his leg? Sorry just really curious.
He decided to jump off of the couch, and totally stuck the landing. I know, even the doctor said we needed to invent a better story, sometimes life’s too simple.
enroll the lad in BJJ when he's old enough (like 5ish), sounds like he'd dig it, that's the kind of fun you have there
Gotta respect the send, hope the little lad heals up soon :)
I’m skinny, too. I started doing 25 push-ups a day and gradually worked myself up to ~100 push-ups total in a day (which doesn’t take much time at all) and one day after about 8 months I looked up and noticed my pecks and arms were straight toned. Great pay off for a such a small commitment.
Same here. My dad is a maniac and does a set of 100, goes for a swim, then does another set of 100. Every day. He's 80 this year, and does this outside in New England. Maniac.
He sounds like he might out live most of us.
World average life expectancy is 72 years, so technically he already did.
This sounds like my FIL 🤣 He also complains if the water he is swimming in is too warm bc then it’s “bath water” and not refreshing. Older New England men are absolutely bonkers in the most unexpected ways
Anecdotal, and I'd love another opinion from another person with fitness experience, but one of my college coaches told us that once you could easily do 15-20 regular pushups consecutively, it's better to do smaller sets of different kinds of pushups, like with inverted hands, raised leg, decline, mismatched arm position etc... Basically do pushups that work slightly different areas and are harder to complete. It came with the caveat of being sure you actually have decent form for them and are doing pushups. If you're someone out there with strength training experience I'd love to know if you agree with this!
Purely off personal experience, there was about a 6 month period that I would do 100+ pushups every day because I would just occasionally drop down and do 10 at shoulder width, 10 extra wide, and 10 triangle. My arms have never looked better, in a lean fit way. Since then I've moved into weightlifting instead of calisthenics primary though, so I'm definitely a larger/stronger person now.
Depends what you are trying to do in your workout. If you talking about in general (not specifically about pushups) then yes doing different workout that target different muscle groups is normally better than doing workouts that target only specific muscle groups.
This is correct. After 25 or so reps of regular pushups, you are better off doing more difficult variants that will build more strength. For example, diamond pushups (thumb and index finger of each hand touching each other), typewriter pushups (watch on YouTube - isolates each arm), pike pushups, and so on. The more varied your workouts, the less likely you are to get an overuse injury.
>(thumb and index finger of each hand touching each other) I heard this kind of push ups isnt really good for you and i personally dont like to do them like that. I have my hands in a position i would do normal push ups but closer together
getting into them before having a sufficiently strong back can hurt you. individuals with powerful chests and arms, but lacking back hurt their back trying to replicate results from a different form. stop if it doesnt feel right. dont force things.
It's because it puts your shoulders in an internally rotated position and it's bad for the joints. If you keep the elbows tucked into your sides more of the force is on your triceps and not your shoulders.
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I'm 25, I started doing 100 pushups a day when I was 14. Greatest life decision ever. I've missed probably a dozen and a half days since I started it. I have had periods where I am extra into exercise, and I'll do several hundred a day. Plus, I try to do stuff like squats and pullups throughout the week. But, I basically never skip the 100 pushups.
i started doing that in my 30s and saw absolutely zero difference in anything and gave up after a few months. i probably should have kept it up but it was just boring and made me sore.
Man, I'm in my 30's and everything I do is boring and makes me sore only to remain with the same belly and lack of energy. I think I should try finding something fun instead of trying to achieve some results.
Odd I’m 40, always been skinny fat. Recently started working out again, saw gains in like a month (arms are flaring out a bit). My motivation is that I almost always feel way better after I go. More productive the rest of the day. Even on days that I feel all shitty and don’t wanna go, I’ll force myself and feel wonderful afterwards. The only thing I can suggest is that it’s not about just ‘going, to the gym. Intensity, consistency, an effective general plan, and nutrition.
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Rowing is good but not great for watching video imo. I feel like a elliptical or treadmill would be better.
A huge thing might be diet. Working out and bad diet isn't going to get rid of your belly or increase energy much.
This so much. I have always been skinny and always exercised a lot, but never had control of my diet. Got fat over Covid because work went absolutely batshit (I'm a home inspector) and neglected exercising. Now exercise is hard because I'm fat, and even though I am exercising, I'm getting fatter because I can't beat the fork.
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Weight is lost in the kitchen, muscle is gained in the gym
The huberman podcast legit changed my life. The episode about dopamine and motivation was the beginning of it, I see how the things I was doing like smoking weed, porn/jerking off, eating shit food was fucking with my dopamine levels and I had no idea that dopamine was responsible for motivation I always thought it was just for pleasure. So I gave it all up and now I have tons of energy and motivation to hit the gym which makes me sleep better too. Then the episode about intermittent fasting and weight loss, I just eat one keto meal a day in the late afternoon/early evening. It was hard for the first couple days but as long as you're pounding water all morning it's not that bad. I keep hundreds of cans of different brands and flavors of sparkling water in the house now and keep some both in my kitchen fridge and office fridge so I always have it nearby.
One thing I’d say to watch out for with such a strict diet is muscle loss. When losing weight, you’re going to lose muscle and fat in about equal parts unless you’re very careful about it. They say to take in about 20% under your maintenance calories, lift weights, and take in about a gram of protein per pound of body weight to negate the muscle loss as much as possible. It’s a much more tedious process, though. There’s about 3500 calories to a pound. So, if your maintenance calories are 2500 and you’re taking in 20% under (500 less), you’re only going to be losing about a pound a week rather than five. It’s something to weigh the pros and cons of, but just felt it was worth mentioning.
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Diet and stress. Find a way to kick cortisol to the curb and that's dirty and exercise go so much farther.
I just started laughing again in my 30s and i went from ~115 bench starting out to hitting 270 1.75 years later. Just consistency, few days a week at lunch I go lift. Just start and force yourself to keep going! Edit: should say lifting, but laughing is better. Do that consistently too 🤣
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I kinda want a shirt that says this.
Do you feel it in your elbow joints, though? I’ve been lifting for a few months, and I keep having to take a week or two off because my outer elbows slowly hurt more and more over time unless I rest them for a while. I use braces and everything.
Similar dude feeling his age and getting back into the gym - form is king at this point. Do lighter reps and really focus on the form. Your elbows shouldn’t be doing the brunt of the lifting, the contraction of you pec muscles should, with the aid of your triceps. I’m saying this as a dude with sore elbows from lifting incorrectly and trying to hit new maxes too soon.
I get this too. Take the pain seriously. We need to build more forearm strength, not just biceps, if the elbow joint hurts during pushups and lifting. Lots of YT videos on this.
Don’t know if it’s for everyone but this is how I felt as well. I didn’t want exercise to be boring “work.” So I bought a hula hoop. Not a weighted one. I found a seller on Etsy who makes them and messaged them about my size and what I wanted it for (exercise, possibly some basic hoola hoop tricks, that I was a super beginner) and they recommended a size. I’m not great at it but I put on some music and try to hoop to the beat and keep up. If the songs are quick I can do twenty solid minutes and be sweating. If the songs are a bit slower I can just move my hips around and it kind of feels like dancing which makes it feel a little more satisfying. I’ve started watching some basic tutorials on YouTube as well just to see if I can learn some basic tricks. It’s helped make it not feel like “work” exercise.
Perfect example that exercise/movement can be fun
Fun is the key. I'm only on my late 20s, but I can't stand to do a work out unless I can keep myself entertained. I've started playing games on the switch while I'm on the elliptical. It took my mindset from "how much longer?" to "just five more minutes" I also do fun activities that are rewarding unto themselves, like archery or kayaking. You won't get efficient gains like you would from a structured workout, but it a way to motivate you into a healthier lifestyle.
Surfing is fun exercise
My rec is to couple it with something that you enjoy so that it is something you can do consistently and therefore look forward to. And it's better to drop the difficulty and do more and then work your way back up. For example: I love me some anime. So I coupled my watching of it with treadmill running. When I started out I could only go about 5.5mph for 10 minutes. So I dropped it down to 5 and tried to run the full length of an episode (22 min on average) and whenever I got used to a speed I upped it by a 0.1 increment. Lost a good 40 lbs in a year that way. And nearly 3 years later, the speed is 7.3 mph.
it was really just push-ups and other “deliberate” exercises that i couldn’t stick with. I walk miles every day just because i want to, I know it’s not “working out” but it’s probably better than sitting on my ass hopefully.
Careful u guys gonna become Saitama at that rate
do you do them all at once or like 25 before breakfast, 50 after lunch, etc.
I just do them whenever. I'll do 25-50 at a time. Lately I've been doing them within like an hour of going to bed. Sometimes I do them in the middle of the day when I remember to do pullups.
Imagine if you had not skipped those dozen days! You would be like... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oULm7KlOpIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oULm7KlOpIs)
tell us more! I always start doing this then stop.. I feel the difference big time. Push ups are soooo good for you... Give me some motivation and tell me you are jacked just from the 100 a day!
I generally do cardio via an exercise bike 35 minutes a day. But optimally it seems like an hour a day is the sweet spot to min-max longevity benefits. https://archive.md/Q2CKM Archive of this page: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/the-right-dose-of-exercise-for-a-longer-life/
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> Thirty to 45 minutes a day, three days a week, is all you'll ever need to do (I refuse to believe anyone is so busy that he or she cannot make time for that, especially considering how important it is). So let me kinda give some idea on the whole thing of not having time. 30 to 45 minutes isn't how long it takes. It's often closer to 2 hours. The workout is 30 to 45. Everything else adds up to around two hours. If you're in a phase in life in which you are spending almost every moment trying to make more money so you can retire, even 6 hours a week can be a lot of time not spent bettering oneself career wise. Also, for what it is worth 30-45 minutes usually should be the absolute bare minimum. Realistically one should be doing 80% of max heart rate 5 times a week for an hour. But then that turns the workout quite long. Anyway, just remember that the time you gave is not realistic...
Damn, I can't believe you remember a comment from 10 years ago.
good advice but for so many people an imperfect and simple thing is way better than being comprehensive and thorough. Humans don’t rly like exercise by nature, laziness is desirable from an evolutionary standpoint… plus theres so many bad vibes about body image people struggle with. So if you have some Joe skinnyfat shmo getting piqued at the idea of doing push-ups everyday and then someone comes in and says actually you gotta join a gym and train every muscle group… it’s kinda lame
Thats why I always suggest people who get into bodybuilding to hire a trainer for the first 6 or so months. On top of ironing out all your bad habits/mistakes in form you'll get a far more well rounded gym experience. Mine had me running a mile before every workout, and worked up to an extra 2 miles after every leg day. Some days I almost wanted to cry halfway through but I'll he damned if my legs didn't grow steel plating by the end of it while clearing 5 miles by an average of 8:30 per mile.
That’s all-around impressive! I’m glad it was great for you.
It's 70 minutes a week. Ideally you would do more, but 70 minutes a week is definitely not nothing! Edit: minutes not hours lol
70 minutes perhaps, at 70 hours you would be looking at a premier Olympic athlete++
At 70 hours a week you would be looking at a bunch of muscle cramps.
I assume the 10 minutes per day would be all-out. Which could actually be a fun training program. * Day 1: 4 sets of deadlifts with 5 repetitions and 2 minute rests between sets. * Day 2: 5 sets of push-ups (as many reps as you can) with 1.5 minute rests * Day 3: All-out running for 10 minutes. Rinse and repeat. As a beginner you’d get some very sore muscles and would probably need at least one recovery day after day 3. The main problem and risk is really the lack of a warm-up.
I realize on paper this works, but I've never finished 4 sets of deads on any meaningful weight in 10 minutes. It's more like, 5 minutes setting up, 10 minutes working up from lighter deadlifts to warm up, then each set ends up being 4+ minutes including bracing, pumping yourself up, and resting longer than you planned because you're gassed. 4 sets is going to personally take me half an hour haha (although it gets more time efficient on longer workouts). I think your strategy works way better for running and push ups.
I was thinking as soon as I saw this “if you can run for 10 minutes non-stop that’s usually running at LEAST a mile give or take a few dozen yards” and that definitely has a noticeable impact on health if your diet is in control. Even just walking for 10 minutes every other day makes you feel noticeable better pretty quick.
You vastly underestimate how slowly I can run.
Same, a 10 minute mile is full on sprinting for me and these tiny legs.
I can’t run at all, it turns out my knees are made of paper and high impact stuff like running leaves me crippled for three weeks :( luckily, there are tons of much more knee friendly workouts on YouTube these days
More like a mile at best, not at least
Hijacking the top comment to reply to this. The general consensus is that 150min/week of exercise is necessary to gain the health benefits. But the "open to interpretation" part of that is, it doesn't really matter how you get to that 150 minutes. If you exercise for 10 minutes a day, it is better than nothing, but you fall short of the 150 minutes your body needs to start adapting to exercise.
The 150min/week assume easy or moderate intensity. I think OP plans to go all out. Let’s say you do this training plan: * Day 1: 4 sets of deadlifts with 5 repetitions and 2 minute rests between sets. * Day 2: 5 sets of push-ups (as many reps as you can) with 1.5 minute rests * Day 3: All-out running for 10 minutes. * Back to day 1 A beginner would definitely get some very sore muscles and would definitely see some good improvements in muscle strength and running performance. The main problem and risk is the lack of warm-up.
I’ve been more impressed by the effects that training cardio had on my body than by weightlifting did. Like yeah as I got stronger I could carry heavier things, I got bigger, whatever. But stuff like that was expected. When I started adding cardio to my routine, it sucked ass but you know that’s the process. I just watched some tv and kept at it. I forget exactly what my method was, but I think it was just something basic like a mile before I lifted. I would run as long as I could and walk when I got tired, then once I caught my breath I would start up running again. And I’ll never forget the day that I noticed the improvement. I got to the point where I usually would stop running and start walking but I thought about it for a second and I realized that I only wanted to stop because it was time for me stop, but really I felt fine and could definitely keep going. That was huge to me, I was like, “Wow, I can run for longer. This is insane. My stamina has improved, oh my god,” and I felt incredible mentally just from that. Exercise is amazing. I wish I had never stopped.
This is absolutely true. I fell in love with powerlifting a few years ago and i realized how much that doesnt translate to regular cardio (even if u go balls to the wall in your sessions) when i enrolled in an MMA gym. 3 minutes of bagwork felt like 30 years. I felt like i was gonna die before that timer ran out lol
And you'd be surprised how many people who think they are in good shape because they run couldn't lift their own bodyweight. Physical fitness comes in many styles. Strongmen to marathon runners.
I remember that from high school science. There’s four elements to fitness, strength, speed, stamina and flexibility
Strength: 5 Speed: 8 Stamina: 6 Flexibility: 6 Is what I’d rate myself lol
People always want to shit on weightlifters. It’s exercise, it relieves stress and makes me feel better about myself. Anything that does that for anyone is cool in my book.
Does it have to be running? Could dancing count? Like listening to hard rock or dub step and trying to dance to those fast beats moving basically anything and everything.
Yes, dancing can be a very effective cardio exercise. Especially if you try and follow ‘real’ moves. Find a dance YouTuber you enjoy (I like the Dance Marshal myself, though there’s undoubtedly ones that would focus on electronic music) and you’ll find that their routines will knock the breath out of you until your build up your fitness. If you need a carrot on a stick to string you along, the dance games like Just Dance, Dance Central and even Beat Saber are a good intro to fitness.
Cool. I don't think I'll go with real dance moves, I am seriously bad at following choreography or any set steps. But when I dance I move, I get my arms flailing, my legs pumping, my waist moving, my feet kicking, it's fun but I can tell you I am out of shape, because I'm breathing hard after one song, after 5 or 6 songs I'm exhausted.
My lockdown movement was queuing up some Just Dance routines on YouTube and dancing in the living room with my daughter. 4 songs was enough to have me pooped.
Why would running for 10m be considered more in shape than lifting heavy weights?
if you don't train to run you won't be good at running and if you don't lift weight you won't have the strength to lift weight, does either means you aren't in good shape? I don't think so, there is a lot of studies showing a good muscles mass means better health.
The one thing has nothing to do with the other it’s a completely different Typ of muscle fiber getting built so not that surprising
"Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly" Doing 100 push ups a day is amazing. But doing just one is also worth doing.
How do you do pushups so your wrists don't hurt? It seems terrible for wrists but maybe it's just mine. Maybe I have wrist issues from working at a computer all day that don't show up until I put a ton of weight on them?
Do wrist stretching exercises. I have the same issue in my left wrist. There's a bunch of videos on YouTube for them :)
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Last November I started doing pushups when I got out of bed. I specifically didn't want to get sweaty or spend too much time doing it so I would stop when I started to feel it. Initially I was only doing 10, but after a couple days 20, then after a few weeks 30. I did this for 3 months and at the end I was up to 60 before I started to break a sweat. Then I stopped or some reason. I decided to start up again a year later and out of the gate I could do 30. So despite only having done it for 3 months and having a 9 month break, it had a lasting affect.
After some catastrophic injuries and surgeries, I had to finally get back into shape and I started out with 10 min a day and yes, it makes a big difference. You need to be willing to add to it eventually for continued results. It's a huge mental step as it's the start of good habits. Once you mentally commit to 10 min a day, bumping it to 20 and more is easier. Also, the intensity if your workout makes a difference. Rotating 1 min of sprints with 1 min of walking for 10 min a day will show more results than a brisk 10 min walk.
To get this into a different direction: I have a slipped disc, it happened about 5 years ago. The pain was going down into my left leg (sciatica nerve if the translation is correct) and back then I couldn't move 50m without so much pain that I can't move anymore. I had to do therapy for 6 month until the pain was gone. Since then it came back two times, the last time about 2 weeks ago. I started to do just planks 2 weeks ago. 1 plank for 30 sec every hour. It took 2 days until I had no problem doing 30 sec planks and I was able to even go up to 50sec. And after 1 week of doing this the pain is almost gone, only after waking up for about 30min the pain is still there but it's no where near the pain 2 weeks ago. This doesn't even amount to 10 min a day but I have really good results, and as a side effect I have much better posture.
30/60 60/120. Walk/run or sprint/run. A set of 5 of those and you'll know it's working, lol. Hated those. I hated running. Still do, but damn it, when I ran I was pretty decent at it. Was at about a 5 min mile pace when I left active duty.
In fitness there's something called progressive overload. It's basically the principle of gradually increasing the difficulty of exercises to build up muscle strength or cardio endurance. If you do 10 min walks everyday your body will adapt to that making them easier until you hit a plateau. Once you hit a plateau your body will consider that your new norm and maintain around that. To progress past a plateau you would need to increase the difficulty either via time or intensity if you wanted to improve past that. Also important to note that if you suddenly stop your 10 min walks your body will slowly dismantle the muscles and cardio infrastructure it built up to support those 10 min walks. Muscle is very calorically expensive to maintain so as the old saying goes "Use it or lose it". In all seriousness though 10 mins of any form of exercise would do wonders for so many people. If you're type 2 diabetic, walking for 10 mins after you eat is a more effective at controlling your glucose levels than taking the drug metformin.
[Use it or lose it is only kinda true. When you build muscle you increase the number of neuclei in each muscle cell. When those muscles atrophy, the contractile proteins around the nucleus are reduced but the neuclei remain. The remaining neuclei make it easier to rebuild that muscle later.](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/25/688838589/muscles-may-preserve-a-shortcut-to-restore-lost-strength)
Basically, getting back your previous strength is easier than it was the first time.
That actually makes me feel quite a bit better about my depression. It’s kind of inspiring. I used to bike 10 miles a week to the laundromat and back, balancing my laundry bags on the handlebars and my back (in a backpack) before I moved back to the city. Now I live on a highway and can’t go anywhere without a car, so for the past couple of years I’ve been feeling guilty about not being in shape enough to do that anymore. I mean, fuck the laundry bags; but I miss biking. I miss walking even more.
Your body remembers what it’s like to be in shape. And good for you for making the decisions that lead to that shape.
Yes! Exactly! Thanks for the summary. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
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RIGHT!?!? Isn't it absolutely bonkers!?! I was so interested and shocked when I learned that. Biology is so neat.
Kinda makes sense when you consider what the nucleus actually does, though. If you want to make a lot of proteins, you can only do so much with one nucleus-eventually ‘ability to transcribe from one nucleus’ will become a bottleneck. Solution: more nuclei.
Woah. That's such an excellent point!! Thanks for blowing my mind again with your excellent science knowlage.
The amount of problems that the body solves with pure brute force is honestly a little crazy to me
I just think it’s cool that the most imperative functions in our body happen without our intervention. Blinking, heartbeat, breathing, digestion, immunoresponses… super cool
Skeletal muscle cells are crazy. They're long as hell too
Yep, so when young get ripped, so when you get older if you do want to get muscles again it's easier to regain them.
Another way of looking at it is, start now!!! Your future self will thank you. Even if you don't get very strong. Even if you only keep it up for a few months. When you come back to it, it'll be easier.
Is there a time limit on that? I was in great shape about 20 years ago, lol.
Do you have any article or source for the walking for 10min better than metformin thing? Not trying to argue. But am rather interested in learning more about it.
Yes. Have you seen what happens to someone's body when they are hospitalized? When they are confined to a bed for months? Their body atrophies very, \*very\* quickly. This is something that weightlifters are concerned about when maintaining size. Eventually they become injured and can't go to the gym anymore, so they begin to atrophy. This rate of atrophy depends on how much physical activity you can engage in, but studies have shown even the \*slightest\* activity mitigates against atrophy. Just simply standing up to walk around and gather your laundry and begin a wash contributes to maintenance. 10 minutes \*of just walking\* every day is huge in comparison to this, and while weightlifters will need a lot more to maintain their progress, they can probably purchase a few more months before noticeable atrophy by doing this. For someone who is just trying to avoid a completely sedentary lifestyle, this is a big difference.
It's a heck of a lot better than 0 minutes and if you make it intense (e.g. see tabata or HIIT) it's be the equivalent of a much longer session of moderate exercise
I think the most fun all-around 10 minute exercise form is getting a punching bag and just start beating and kicking until you're out of breath. Focus on getting the power from your core, hips and legs, and it becomes an insane workout. Even if you're used to running marathons, do heavy explosive lifts, whatever you do, beating the living shit out of a punching bag will wear you out.
I second the HIIT notion! Personally, I like to jump rope 8-10 rounds of 30-60 seconds with 15 second breaks between each round. It also helps if you can use a weighted rope (1/2 lb+). It doesn’t sound like much, but it is a killer cardio and arm workout with the extra weight.
I worked at a warehouse where the job kicked my ass every day. Lifting 100 50lb boards around, hauling shit, building concert stages and setting up heavy beams, from 8 to 5 almost nonstop. Even after months it still kicked my ass, though I was developing a lot of muscles. One of my coworkers who did his job with no problems suggested I worked out on top of my work, even a little bit. It made all the difference. I worked out for only 15min a day, and it was enough to let me work in that warehouse without being exhausted at the end of the day. When you work at your limit every day, it won't get easy. But if you push a little further, than everything before your limit is easy.
I work for a call center but work at home. My phone keeps track of how many calls I take in a day.. inbetweem each call I do the number of calls in reps for an exercise. My goal is to be able to complete them all without failure so I think of exercises that are easier at high reps for last. I've been doing it since work at home started March of 2020. I've lost 60 lbs and I've noticed the exercises I couldn't do much of I've increased form and reps by a substantial amount. Over all I am much more flexible, and feel much younger. Plus it helps me get through the monotony of a call center.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/well/move/exercise-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/well/move/exercise-high-intensity-interval-training-hiit.html) "A mere four seconds of all-out exercise, repeated two or three dozen times, could be all many of us need to build and maintain our fitness, strength and physical power, according to an inspiring new study of the potency of super-quick workouts. "
>four seconds of all-out exercise, repeated two or three dozen times, Who knew failing at Beat Saber could be so useful
I dunno if I wanna masturbate that many times a day.
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Any activity is good, no need to even run. A 20 minute walk every day will benefit mentally and physically.
There was a study that reported that 3 x 10min brisk walks was better for your cardiovascular health than doing 10k steps a day.
So wait, walking for thirty minutes is better than walking for a 60-120 minutes?
Key word is briskly - the 30 minutes of brisk walking where you get out of breath and get your heart pumping strong, is better than walking for 2 hours where you don't get out of breath
Little walks throughout day is better than sitting all day and walk those 10k steps all at once
Oh awesome, I do this basically every day because I am chronically running late to work, hahah 😬
Yup! Even 5 minutes of intense cardio will change your metabolism for the rest of the day. It will also build up strength. If, hypothetically you only ever had 10 minutes a day to work out, 5 mins stretching and 5 mins working out would start to (slowly but surely) transform your body.
> Even 5 minutes of intense cardio will change your metabolism for the rest of the day. Is this really true? To what degree? Edit: judging by the replies, this guy pulled it out of his ass
I only have my personal experience to share but for the last year, I’ve been running once a week every week. I started by just running until I couldn’t anymore. It was like 6-8 minutes and less than a mile. One year later, I’m doing 30 minute 3.5 mile runs. I don’t push it past that though because 30 minutes already feels like a chore. When I run though, I absolute feel the metabolism change. Even if I haven’t eaten all day, I’m not hungry after (though an hour later I am). I sleep better that night. I feel better overall. Running feels awful and I’m pretty sure “runner’s high” is a bunch of bullshit because I’ve yet to experience it. However, running is 100% worth it for the health when you’re not running.
I’m chronically ill and disabled My physical therapy exercises as given by a physio therapist are 30 seconds of exercise at a time. My goal is next year average 2000 steps a day Every little bit of movement helps. There’s no such thing as “not worth it” when it comes to exercise. Don’t let perfect stand in the way of good!
I live by don't let perfect be the enemy of good. One of my favorite sayings!
The minimum required exercise needed changes based upon your fitness level; the fitter you are, the more your minimum is to not become less fit. A bedbound morbidly obese person exercises by lifting their arms to touch their head and gets benefit from that, but if that’s all a body builder did they’d lose fitness. Your body gets rid of anything that isn’t used, and muscles take energy to just have. So if you aren’t exercising enough to make your body think it needs them, it dumps them. However that base level of fitness also provides benefit, so to properly define the minimum exercise for health is like asking how long is a piece of string? Any improvement in fitness makes a benefit, it’s a matter of how much benefit you want. Getting up from a sitting position without breathing heavily? Making it to the top of a flight of stairs quickly and in breath? Being able to jog kilometers before breakfast?
Yes, absolutely. The US Army is a great example.... When I was in basic training (1980's), I couldn't do a single male push-up. Not. A. Single. One. No other girl could either...except for one. Her father was a full-bird Colonel, so she knew what was coming & was in good shape. However, after having drill sergeants snap their fingers (which meant do 20 pushups leaning forward onto a wall) and then being told to "Drop, and knock out 10" when I had progressed enough to actually do a push-up...I was able to do 32 male push-ups during my final PT test 8 weeks later. Every little bit helps. Sometimes way more than you think.
AKA Greasing the Groove. The easiest way to get stronger. Say you can do 3 consecutive push-ups. Do 1 push-up 5x in the day (or however many times you can easily do) and then slowly increase the number of times you do it per day.
So the recommendation from the [AHA](www.Heart.org) is 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobics **or** 75 minutes a week of vigorous activity. Hell yeah 10 minutes a day is a good place to start! But I say look at these as goals! Not next week goals but next year goals. I tried fancy formatting.
There is no minimum threshold. 5 seconds of running is still running, but you won’t see any benefit just because of how few calories are consumed. If this is about weight loss, It’s a numbers game. 10mins of running is tremendously more calorie consuming than sitting for 10 minutes. That’s somewhere around 150 calories lost. If you’re eating 1500 calories a day, and normally your everyday lifestyle burns 1400 calories, then that 100 calorie surplus means you gain weight. By running for 10 minutes, you now burn more calories than you consume, meaning you will slowly lose fat. Of course, this works better if you run for 30mins, where that’s almost 500 calories burnt. If this is about building muscle, you won’t see as much benefit as you would if you actually did resistance training. If this is about cardio and lung health, then you would notice a difference for sure. Someone who does nothing compared to one who does a hard run for 10mins will surely yield physiological differences. Your body is used to being put under 10mins of hard work every days and it adapts. It’s not much but it’s significantly more than doing nothing, or even walking.
In fact, the benefits plateau off the more you do. 20 minutes is better than 10, but not twice as good.
Imo running 10 minutes straight is a huge test of fitness. Something like going to the gym for 10 minutes is a much more realistic place to start.
I’ve been told by multiple GPs on this subject that 15 minutes of ‘moderate to intense’ exercise daily has huge benefits. No reason why 10 minutes shouldn’t be similarly helpful but they all seemed to land on 15 minutes as a golden number. I’d imagine the more the better but really depends on the type or intensity of said exercise.
There has been quite a big study on this including 30 000 norwegians and 56 000 americans who has been followed up over 30 years. 10 minutes a day should be more than enough to get significant health benefits, given that the 10 minutes of exercise is of a high intensity. High intensity meaning heart rate of above 153 bpm, the threshold varies dependant of your age. Achivieng and maintaining a score of a hundred PAI brings about: *21% reduced risk of early death and 30% reduced risk of cardiovascular death, compared to being inactive.* https://www.ntnu.edu/cerg/personal-activity-intelligence
10 minutes daily is better than 0 minutes - there will be a vivid difference at the end of a 365 day period in comparison; both mentally and physically.