No judgment: Who among us hasn't wondered what the minimum amount of exercise is that we can get away with and still stay healthy?
You might like the newest answer: four seconds.
There's a catch, of course. It's not four seconds total. It's four-second intervals. Still, that sounds doable, right?
A study from the University of Texas at Austin, published in December 2020 in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise reported that four-second spurts of exertion, totaling one minute, can have benefits for those middle aged and older.
The study, performed on men and women ages 50-68, included brief workouts of four-second sprints on specialized bikes, followed by 56 seconds of rest. The sequence was repeated 15 times.
Over two months' time, the riders rest intervals decreased to 26 seconds and the total number of sprints increased to 30. At the end of eight weeks, said the New York Times, the riders had on average increased their fitness by about 10 percent, gained considerable muscle mass and strength in their legs, and reduced the stiffness of their arteries. They also saw improvement in basic activities of daily living.
