NY Times article: Shorter bouts of exercise lower blood pressure…
I’ve personally been doing my 5 minute band exercises for over 10 years now. I do 5 minutes, take a break, then another 5 minutes, and repeat this 4 times for a 20 minute, total body workout. That’s it. At 42, I am in the best shape of my life, better than when I played college football.
I spent the last 2 mornings working out with friends in the park, doing my 20 minute band workout. Beside they being hard working, good people, they are also in great shape, and my band workout is the base of their workouts, doing bands at least 5 times per week for 20 minutes.
What does this have to do with the NY Times article? More and more evidence is supporting what I’ve know for years; workouts can be shorter, if you’re smarter about them, with the same or better health results. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
His work joins a small but compelling body of science suggesting that, for many purposes, short, cumulative exercise sessions are remarkably beneficial. A study published last year in PLoS One, for instance, found that in children and teenagers, repeated bouts of running or other physical activity lasting as little as five minutes at a time reduced the youngsters’ risks of poor cholesterol profiles, wide waistlines and above-average blood pressure readings as much as longer exercise sessions did.
You can read more here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/the-10-minute-workout-times-three/
If you have 90 minutes a day to do the P90x or some other advanced, extended, complicated and difficult to maintain workout, and drive, go ahead; or you can workout in 5 minute intervals, eat great, and get the same results.