Why men should exercise less

Spend hours pounding the pavements or slogging at the gym? New research suggests you really don’t have to.If you’re one of the many men who likes to exercise a bit, but can’t manage the long slogs that seem to separate the super fit from the rest of us, here’s some good news.What you’re doing already may be enough.
And if you’re the sort of bloke who would rather not bother if you can’t get sweaty for anything less than an hour, the opposite is true.You may be doing too much. Or at least, much of your effort might be going to waste.Here’s why many men might be better off exercising less.

Moderate exercise is best

The idea that you can exercise too much was given credence in a study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen, who measured exercise duration and weight loss in young men who usually did very little and were moderately overweight.
The researchers split the men into three groups. One group was asked to stick to their normal routine, one was asked to exercise for 30 minutes a day, and the last group was asked to exercise for an hour every day. The exercises included running, rowing and cycling.They were also told not to change their diets and to a keep a food diary.The results were surprising. Both the moderate 30-minute-a-day and the high intensity 60-minute-a-day exercisers lost weight, but the moderate group lost more (8lb in three months on average compared to 6lb). Not surprisingly, the group that didn’t change their habits lost no weight at all.
“Participants exercising 30 minutes per day burned more calories than they should relative to the training programme we set for them,” said researcher Mads Rosenkilde.
“In fact we can see that exercising for a whole hour instead of a half does not provide any additional loss in either body weight or fat.”This seems counter-intuitive, of course. Surely the simple calorie in/calorie out equation would mean that those who exercised more lost more weight. But it simply didn’t happen like that.

Optimum exercise times

The researchers are not 100% sure why doing less, but doing something, means you lose more weight, but they have a couple of interesting theories.
It could be that 30 minutes a day is a perfect amount for weight loss because those who worked out the longest were more tired at other times during the day. That meant they did less non-exercise activity, and were more sedentary when they weren't consciously working out.The motion sensors worn by every participant seemed to bear this out: the moderate exercisers moved more at other times.
It might also be true that those who worked out longest were more complacent. They could slob in front of the telly all evening because they had exercised for a whole hour earlier in the day. The 30-minute group may have felt less confident about the positive effects of their workouts.

Intensity may be key

The latest study isn’t the first to show the benefits of shorter workouts. In the last few years a slew of papers have suggested that short bouts of intensive exercise could confer all the health benefits of longer, more arduous sessions.In fact, a recent report from University of Bath scientists found that just a minute or so of exercise a day can be a boon for your health.
They asked volunteers to perform two short cycle sprints on exercise bikes three times a week, and found that after just six weeks the participants showed, on average, a 28% improvement in their insulin function. The better your insulin function, the lower your risk of type 2 diabetes.Similarly, a study published last year by McMaster University in Canada found that 10-minute bursts of intense exercise on an exercise bike, repeated three times a week, were as good for building fitness and muscle power as 10 hours of moderate cycling over a two-week period.
To top it all, a study by the University of Glamorgan found that six 30-second sprints three times a week can have the same health and weight-loss benefits as jogging or cycling for up to 45 minutes several times a week.

Less is more

It seems that the evidence is becoming clear: you don’t have to slog for hours on a treadmill or bicycle to lose weight and get healthy.Even the bigwigs at the American College of Sports Medicine are coming round to that view. They agree that 20 minutes of high-intensity activity (you should be breathless and sweating) is as good as 40-45 minutes at a less strenuous pace.
But the Copenhagen study is perhaps the best news yet, because those who lost most weight weren’t replacing time with intensity. They weren’t, for example, running for 30 minutes instead of 60 but doing it faster. Both groups were exercising at the same intensity.No, what this new study suggests is that 30 minutes of solid daily exercise is all most of us who want to lose weight or get healthier really need. It gives us a kick-start, but leaves us with enough energy to be active for the rest of the day.