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Comment by MuffinFlavored | Hacker News Reader

What about walking 0 steps a day for 50 years and then trying to make up for lost time?

In all seriousness, there's a lot of research showing huge benefits of starting to exercise later in life. It's almost as helpful as exercising the whole time (in terms of avoiding cardiac events).

Yeah there's basically no such thing as "too late". We're adaptable creatures - that biological programming to try and conserve energy at all costs (basically why we need to force ourselves to exercise) also works the other way - the body is pretty happy to start making big changes when it believes it's under a moderate physical stress.

The amount of improvement I've gotten from 20 minutes on a rowing machine 5 days a week - and let's be clear, that's basically all I do on the logic of "I can spare 1 YouTube video of time (and still watch the video)" is insane.

What does your rowing routine look like? Are you aiming to maintain a specific pace or energy output for those 20 minutes?

I have access to a Concept2 and I rowed for a year in high school (i.e. I have the basic stroke form down) but I find that every time I try to start a rowing routine I over-do it in the first few sessions and end up dropping it.

Just move for 20 minutes. If rowing gets boring look for row bootcamps. Row for 7-10, lift light weights for 7-10, then row again for 7-10. The second row feels easy :)

I just aim for the duration. The key for me is to remind myself 20 minutes is not a long time, and getting through it is more important then hitting targets.

I've probably naturally gotten faster at it, but the basic idea is to keep any steady pace and just make sure I do it.

Most of the basic research on this tends to suggest the same thing: you need 15-30 minutes a day of mildly aerobic exercise, and you get a big boost in calorie demand per day and feel better. That's what I'm aiming for: and for me rowing has the additional benefit that it's very compatible if you suffer from IBS/other gut pain things (which I do) which always knocks out running for me.

I would even go one step further:

If you could only choose to exercise when young OR when old, the latter is probably more beneficial. When you're young you have a built-in amount of fitness, unfortunately this is not the case for old people and so exercise probably has a more significant impact for them.

This is particularly true for strength training. Older people who do not train for strength can atrophy and lose functional capacity. Nobody who can squat 150 pounds is having a hard time getting out of a chair, nor is someone who can do 15 pound curls having an issue picking up groceries.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Better than nothing as long as you don't push too hard too quickly.

I guess it’ll be better than not trying to make up for lost time

The first 10% is 100x harder than the rest. Rephrased, it only gets easier once you start, so don’t worry too much when starting sucks and feels awful.

You need to count in recovery time.

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