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Comment by jordanpg | Hacker News Reader

My reaction to this is similar to this one: http://norvig.com/21-days.html (Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years)

I've been exercising regularly for a long time and know pretty well what my "equilibrium" exercise time is, and it's about 5 - 6 times longer than 7 minutes. If I thought it could be shorter, then I would make it shorter because my #1 goal is to minimize the number of minutes of my life I spend on exercise.

All I can say about this is that 7 minutes strains credulity and sounds like marketing nonsense to me. At a very minimum, I need to sustain an elevated heart rate for a few minutes to feel good.

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If it makes you feel better, each hour you spend exercising extends your life by around 3.5 hours (net 2.5 after the hour you spent) on average. These are just rough numbers, backed up by the Framingham heart study and an analysis of the Framingham data by Jonker, et al.: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/29/1/38.full.pdf They say 2.5 hours per week over a 75 year lifetime makes you live 3.5 years longer, and 2.5 hours per week over 75 years is around 1 year.

(Of course, you might get hit by a bus tomorrow, but that's true whether you exercise or not. I guess you should avoid exercising near traffic.)

1 of each 3 extra hours is sleep. Also, you have time for shows and change after exercise. It is close to a wash.

But I bet exerciser years are better than non exerciser years, in old age.

Question is, would you rather have an hour in your prime, or 2.5 hours in retirement.

This is also why I smoke, I'd rather lose the shitty years at the end.

That's how it works, right?

not sure if this is just a joke but if it's half in ernest, I've seen a few people die in their 50's from lung camcer. I think when you're in your fifties you'd still have 15 good years or so. Maybe more.

My parents were heavy smokers. Their day to day lives were filled with a lot of coughing, even in their 30s.

Myself, I'm not overweight - I weigh about 60kg, and am 1.75m tall - but I don't exercise. I don't see that it's worth the amount of time it takes out of my day.

My perspective may change if I find myself physically challenged in anything I do. But that seems to be some way off just yet.

> each hour you spend exercising extends your life by around 3.5 hours [...] They say 2.5 hours per week over a 75 year lifetime makes you live 3.5 years longer, and 2.5 hours per week over 75 years is around 1 year.

That is significantly overstated. The study did not establish causation, only associations. The most that can be claimed is that A was predictor of B for group C.

If it makes you feel better, each hour you spend exercising extends your life by around 3.5 hours (net 2.5 after the hour you spent)

Doesn't that math make you immortal?

Exercise an hour, rest for 2.5, repeat forever ... (you also have to sleep, so exercise for 3 hours, sleep next 7.5).

It really just depends what you're training for. In running, for example, Usain Bolt probably doesn't run more than about 15-20 miles per week, but Mo Farah does about 115-120. This "problem" is the same reason BMI is a stupid gauge of health ... unless you're in the fat part (no pun intended) of the bell curve. I'm primarily a runner and my daily runs are in the 50-60 minute range, with short speed workouts and longer, slower long runs, but I augment with bodyweight core & swimming during the week, too (and indoor cycling in the winter). But my goals are not at all the same as yours or anyone else's, so ymmv.

Why not make exercise more fun instead? Play a sport, bike instead of car, etc...

The difference between exercise/sports and training is the goal of getting the most amount of measurable impact towards a specific set of goals with the least amount of effort and time invested.

It may be the case that playing sports (particularly soccer) will yield some progress towards your targets, but that will be with greatly reduced efficiency than if you put focussed effort to specific goals.

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