which indicated to me that ~1000Cal/week expended in a vigorous fashion should be what I shoot for. This means that stuff that elevates post exercise oxygen consumption like resistance training and interval training for cardio are great bangs for your buck. This jives well with other research on the health benefits of these activities. I'm currently hitting the threshold with 2 days/wk of HIIT and resistance training each.

Perhaps a small difference in wording, but I think the change in perspective is important.

More, if you go far enough back (not actually that far, frighteningly) and things like "respect for the life of others" drops out rather sharply.

So.... what, exactly, is the lesson here? My takeaway is that rose colored glasses can make even some of the most horrid of conditions (human history), somehow look good. Me? I'll take the present where I have a reasonable expectation that my kids will not die before me. By a long shot.

Google "wolf run hours per day". Where do they run?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120725200304.ht...

Unless you're elderly, sick, or disabled. Then making long walks, jogging, and sprinting optional is literally a life-saver.

It's why I started exercising about 18 months ago, because I realized my ability to concentrate had faded as my fitness had decreased. I couldn't stand it any more and had to fix it.

It's made a huge difference.

- Every morning except Sunday I'll do some form of cardio; first I did C25K, then random biking, now I'm doing a sprint regimen (from half-awake to dead legs in like eight minutes; talk about bang for your buck)

- Lift every other day doing a simple weights program (started off doing Starting Strength, moved to bodyweight stuff, now back on Starting Strength)

- On weekends I do something fun: co-ed frisbee/soccer leagues are a dime a dozen and will give you quite the workout. The past few weekends I've been going to a climbing gym, which has been awesome.

I had this idea in my head that improving my level of fitness was this Herculean task that would take hours a day, but it's really not. I spend roughly thirty minutes a day working out.

Good if you have tried and then quit the gym before. I also recommend fitocracy.com (or any other sites of that ilk) to "game-ify" exercise a bit and keep you motivated.

I was completely sedentary before that, and I've lost about 100 pounds since Jan 1 of this year. Eat less, exercise some. Made a big cognitive difference.

Spark details how high-intensity cardio (like sprints or interval training) put your brain chemicals in balance in part by generating BDNF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-derived_neurotrophic_fact...), which as Ratey describes, it's like "Miracle-gro" for the brain.

Last year my stress levels were getting out of control from working too much. At the time I was running at least two miles every day so it's not like I wasn't exercising. But then one day I changed from running a couple miles to running 50-yard sprints, as fast and as hard as I could push myself. The first day I only ran four sprints, but I felt euphoric the rest of the day -- the best I had felt in years. So I tried it again a couple days later, and sure enough it worked again -- I felt amazing.

So then I had to find out why this worked -- why a few sprints were so much more effective than running several miles. I started Googling and eventually found Ratey's book -- it explains the entire biochemical process of what's going on and why sprinting works.

It's an eye-opening read. Each chapter covers how high-intensity cardio affects things like stress, anxiety, depression, ADHD. I have ADHD but haven't taken anything for it in years (since I was in college), and I can attest that sprints not only fixed by stress levels, but my ADHD symptoms were almost non existent.

Here's a key point that Ratey makes throughout the book that completely changed my perspective on things -- he says that instead of thinking of exercise as something you should do to look good and build a healthy body, you should instead think of exercise as the key to building a healthy brain: "We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why. We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension or boosting endorphins, and we leave it at that. But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best" (http://www.sparkinglife.org).

In the book's introduction he goes on to say, "Building muscles and conditioning the heart and lungs are essentially side effects. I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain."

In fact the brain exercise routine he recommends is similar to a weight workout routine, in that you have to push yourself hard one day, and then take a day off to let your brain recover, just like in weight training. Another key is when you sprint, always put everything you have into it. Run as fast and as hard as you can so you are constantly pushing your body and your brain past their limitations -- this is the key to growth.

Reposted from: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5323019

If you only have 30 minutes you're indisputably better off sprinting.

If you're concerned, there are alternatives like swimming and biking that are lower impact.

[1] http://tabatatraining.org/

Most coastal areas probably have outrigger paddling clubs or dragon boats or crew. I can't recommend outrigger canoe paddling enough.

I've also measured a marked increase in retention when memorizing GRE words while jogging over memorizing them while sitting. That experiment inspired me to put together this website: http://rungre.com (shameless yet hopefully relevant plug)

Has anyone else tried to combine studying and exercise?

Please don't take this as personal criticism. I just find it important to point out that there is a huge gap between what people unfamiliar with sport perceive as achievements and what actually are achievements. Just put in 4 hours of running and 4 hours of climbing per week and you will see for yourself.

Edit: Or I just failed to see the sarcasm in your post. Entirely possible :)

Seriously. Why do all of you born-again iron men have to come out of the wood-works as soon as people start sharing (not even bragging) their incremental efforts (you said it yourself: persistence) to lead healthier lives? We get it: you are better than them when it comes to fitness (well, the grandparent could be a former Olympian, for all we know. Or he might be an amateur sportsman who also has a sedentary job). Please stop one-upping people that are just getting off their feet when it comes to this.

[0] The importance of which seems to be distinct from exercising regularly, at least if you don't have time to exercise for hours on end each day:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/oct/21/is-sitti...

My comment was just on the narrower idea of making the insane number of hours I (and most people) spend in front of a screen or on calls every day a whole lot less sedentary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano