There has been a belief in the exercise and fitness world for ever and a day that cardiovascular exercise must be done 3 -5 times per week for a minimum of 20 minutes to gain improved cardiovascular fitness.
This has been taught in thousands of universities and colleges worldwide for years, and still is. In the 1990’s I used to manage a health club and my team were all trained with this as the ideal prescription for cardiovascular exercise. Millions of people worldwide still use this format today.
The thing is this is based on research that was incorrectly interpreted. Dr. Wong, a leading naturopathic doctor with a PhD in Exercise Physiology explains this:
“The true Dean of cardiovascular exercise and father of cardiac stress testing was a Scandinavian exercise physiologist named Karvonen. His definitive work in the 50′s and 60′s showed that the heart began getting stronger i.e. more conditioned, after a mere 7 to 8 minutes worth of work.
The idea that 20 minutes or more is needed in order to attain cardiovascular conditioning came from a misreading of research carried out by Dr. Tom Cureton, Jr. Ph.D. another giant in Exercise Science. That research found that the plaque in the arteries began to be worn down, and so the lipids (fats) therein started to be used as fuel at around the 16 to 20 minute mark of aerobic exercise.
The research did not mean that the heart did not condition before 16-20 minutes. Many non-experts however in the exercise field i.e. medical doctors, personal trainers and television stars (with a workout videos to sell), understood it to mean just that”
Dr Wong goes onto say “Do cardiovascular work – minimum 8 minutes, top off at 24 minutes… no more than 3 times a week – period.”
So there we go folks, once again we can see that we have to be careful as to what we believe as it may not be true. We do not have to do as much exercise as we thought to stay healthy, but we do have to do some!
Pick something you enjoy and make it a part of your lifestyle. Exercise gives you energy and most of us want more energy.
