{"id":253,"date":"2014-01-16T07:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T15:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/?p=253"},"modified":"2014-03-09T13:00:40","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T20:00:40","slug":"10-minutes-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/health\/2014\/01\/16\/10-minutes-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Minutes of Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jay Diamond<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes I hate science.\u00a0<\/b>Science often tells me unintuitive things backed by evidence that I simply don\u2019t want to know. Science is truth \u2013 and unfortunately sometimes the truth hurts.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s take a step back.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m often asked a seeming silly, simple question which isn’t actually simple or silly at all. Unfortunately it\u2019s often asked by fitness deniers<\/i> \u2013 that is, people who don\u2019t believe that physical activity will actually have an impact on their lives, or those who just don\u2019t want to be active. Their question is intended to have me admit that it\u2019s all really conjecture\u2026 all hyperbole.<\/p>\n

Does physical activity actually improve health?<\/i><\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The answer is an unequivocal \u201cyes\u201d, but the surprising fact is how recently we’ve discovered this. When the amazing Jack LaLanne<\/a> opened his first fitness club in Oakland in 1936, he had a vague notion, based on anecdotal evidence, that physical fitness had a positive impact on health. It turned out he was right, but it wouldn’t be proven by science for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

In 1949, Dr. Jerry Morris decided to figure out why heart attack rates were on the rise in post-World-War II London. Sampling workers on double-decker buses, he quickly discovered that the drivers had a much higher rate of coronary incidents than the conductors. These men, of similar age, social standing, and in the same working environment, had one large discrepancy in their daily activity: the drivers were sedentary while the conductors didn\u2019t stop moving, ascending and descending 500-750 steps per working day. There are certainly other factors at work, like the stress level of both occupations (driving can be quite stressful while the conductors were predominantly in social situations), but the overriding outcome that exercise is beneficial on cardiovascular health is irrefutable. Morris went on to confirm this by studying postmen vs. sedentary mail clerks.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still stunned that we’ve really only known this connection for ~60 years\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is about the time when the fitness deniers talk about Jim Fixx<\/a>, the author who started a running craze in the 1970s and dropped dead of a heart attack while running in 1984<\/a>. I remind them that there are lots of factors in health, that Fixx was a heavy smoker prior to his running conversion, he was genetically predisposed to coronary disease, and that you’ve gotta die sometime doing something (if many of your waking hours are spent running, well, you do the math\u2026).<\/p>\n

So exercise, in fact stressful exercise<\/i><\/b>, is good for you (Morris also discovered that light activity wasn’t sufficient to stave off coronary disease).<\/p>\n

Taking this to the next level is High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), with variants operating under various names (Sprint Interval Training, Tabata<\/a>, etc.), is the concept of going full out<\/i> (\u201chigh intensity\u201d) for a short period, followed by a short period of rest, and repeating. The duration, peak output, and number of repetitions vary, but the core concept (and results) is generally the same. And I hate it. Because it\u2019s hard. <\/b>But facts are facts, and there is some impressive science behind HIIT.<\/p>\n

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What if I told you that you could exercise under 10 minutes a WEEK\u00a0and get the same results as 5 hours of exercise?<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We all love a quick-fix, and HIIT sounds like exactly that. It sounds like a scam<\/em> – but it\u2019s not<\/strong>. Unfortunately you will hate<\/i><\/b> every moment of that 10 minutes of exercise.<\/p>\n

Scientists took two groups and put them through the following routine three times a week:<\/p>\n