Keeping Fit: Time-friendly health hacks: Big gains, little time

Published 8:00 am Sunday, March 24, 2024

Maintaining a regular workout routine can be challenging, particularly with all the demands of today’s modern lifestyle. However, consider this: What if you could reap all the health benefits without dedicating hours each week to the gym? Whether your goal is to gain strength, improve your heart health or even reduce your cancer risk, new research is showing how dedicating a few minutes a day can make a significant impact. If finding time for exercise is a challenge, this article is for you.

Body by science

Now that you’re on board, let’s look at gaining strength. What’s the minimum you can do and still see great results?

According to a meta-analysis and systematic review from researchers at Solent University, the answer is just one intense set of exercise per muscle group per week. You might be wondering, what constitutes an intense set? An intense set of exercise is performed with such effort that you keep going until you cannot complete even one more repetition.

When training this hard, the vast majority of people can strengthen the entire body in 12 minutes a week using compound exercises such as leg press, chest press, pulldowns, shoulder press and rows. In fact, an entire book called “Body By Science” has been written with this premise in mind and explains the science in detail. There is even some evidence that such a simple, but intense, routine can enhance cardiovascular fitness as well.

Feel the heat for cardiovascular health

But perhaps strength isn’t your only goal. Maybe you want to improve your cardiovascular health as well.

For those who dislike running, biking or the usual cardio routines, the sauna may be right for you. A cohort study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine in 2015 showed that men who attended a sauna bathing session two to three times per week reduced their cardiovascular mortality rates by approximately 27%, and men who attended a sauna session four or more times per week reduced their risk by approximately 50%. Talk about doing less to get more. This was with predominantly dry heat saunas for sessions of about 10-20 minutes or so.

While this all sounds great, certain populations should not use a sauna. People who are pregnant, have kidney disease, certain heart conditions and many other disease states should avoid sauna use and first consult their physician before starting such a routine.

Increased vigor for reducing cancer risk

For those looking to reduce cancer risk, it becomes even simpler. A prospective cohort published last summer in JAMA Oncology found that 3-4 minutes of vigorous activity per day could reduce your risk of cancer by 17-18% compared to no vigorous activity. The risk reduction is further enhanced to a 31% to 32% reduction when 4-5 minutes of vigorous activity is performed.

This study followed more than 22,000 non-exercising people for about six-and-a-half years to see if brief, intermittent (1-2 minute) periods of more vigorous activity actually affected their health and disease incidence. It did. Individuals whose daily activities included bursts of very fast walking, hill or stair climbing and the like totaling several minutes a day saw the reduction in risk cited above.

The bottom line

The pursuit of a healthier lifestyle doesn’t have to be time-consuming or overwhelming. Current evidence suggests that minimal but consistent effort can yield significant health benefits. Whether it’s improving strength with a single set of intense exercises weekly, enhancing cardiovascular health through regular sauna use or reducing cancer risk with just a few minutes of daily vigorous activity, the key is consistency and intensity, not duration. It’s clear that a little can go a long way toward better health.

For more information on taking your health to the next level, great equipment for your strength training or the use of a sauna, come see us at the Bradley Wellness Center.

Mitchell Arthur is a personal trainer at the Bradley Wellness Center.