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Comment by m3nu | Hacker News Reader

Been looking into this recently and one really needs 3 types of exercise:

- strength/resistance training: to build and keep muscles; one benefit of which is better stability at age and metabolic regulation.

- high intensity cardio/HIIT/zone 5/95+% max heart rate: to build VO2max, was also shown to reduce arterial plaque.

- normal cardio/zone 2/50-80% max HR: mitochondrial efficiency, fat burning?, endurance, memory (the current link)

Good frequencies seem to be 3x/week for normal cardio and strength, and 1x/week for HIIT.

A fourth could be stability/stretching/yoga-style exercises. I'm doing those on cardio days currently.

Not easy really. Though anything is better than nothing, so don't stress.

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The amount of zone 2 that one should get is frustratingly large. I love my cardio - more than most, but it can be a real struggle to fit that in when you have a young family. I'm doing great on the strength training side, but the time demands of cardio are hard!

It doesn't help that when I do get outside that I tend to go "comfortably hard" and I'm in the no-man's-land somewhere between zone 2 and 5, not really capitalizing on the full benefits of either regime yet maximizing fatigue.

You also missed very low intensity exercise. Studies talking about the harms of sitting for long periods have been prominent in the news recently. Effects appear even in those who exercise regularly.

Some recommend 3 hours of walking or equivalent a day. 10,000 steps is an similar recommendation.

Hard for a desk job like most of us have. OTOH, as long as you're getting other exercise just standing instead of / as well as sitting might be enough if you're otherwise active.

Strength training done right with full range of motion can be considered both stability and stretching/mobility work.

Like squatting with hundreds of pounds on your back is inherently unstable and forces you to have good balance, and moving your body under load is literally weighted stretching, which is one of the most effective ways of increasing your range of motion if your current range is insufficient for your needs.

> strength/resistance training: to build and keep muscles; one benefit of which is better stability at age and metabolic regulation.

Also hugely important for delaying bone density degradation, which starts declining after age 30, which is part of why the strength training should be reasonably heavy.

what is the notation? HIIT 5/95? means what? Can I just do a ten minute hard run in the morning a few times a week?

Those are heart rate zones, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is zone 5. Here's the first description I found: https://www.polar.com/blog/running-heart-rate-zones-basics/ Since it's interval training, just doing 10mins hard is not what's prescribed. It's more like doing repetitions of, say, 2 mins easy and 30s sprints.

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