For many of us, it’s been a tough year for maintaining healthy habits. As our living situations change and our options for exercising decrease, it is tough to figure out what our workout routine should be like. Good news: It turns out, working the benefits of regular exercise into your life may be easier than you thought. A study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation has found that bursts of exercise as short as 12 minutes can increase your life expectancy and decrease your risk of heart disease and diabetes.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, looked at levels of hundreds of different metabolites in 411 middle-aged men and women before and after about 12 minutes of strenuous exercise. They found that the amount of DMGV, a biomarker linked to increased risk of diabetes and fatty liver disease, dropped 18 percent. Similarly, Glutamate, which is associated with heart disease, diabetes and shorter life expectancy, decreased 29 percent. This is great news for anyone negatively affected with the restrictions associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just 12 minutes of vigorous exercise can fight off deadly diseases and make you live longer.
“We’re starting to better understand the molecular underpinnings of how exercise affects the body and use that knowledge to understand the metabolic architecture around exercise response patterns,” co-lead author Ravi Shah, MD, explains to the Harvard Gazette. “This approach has the potential to target people who have high blood pressure or many other metabolic risk factors in response to exercise and set them on a healthier trajectory early in their lives.”
Still not motivated to set aside just 12 minutes of your day to commit to living a healthier life.
My suggestion
I’ve written about High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) before, so some of you will know what I’m talking about. This is a slightly shorter version of how I do it, but it’s done in 12 minutes.
Exercise in the morning on an empty stomach.
- Warm up with a brisk walk for 2 minutes
- Sprint for 30 seconds
- Walk back to where you stared sprinting in 90 seconds.
- Repeat the sprinting and walking back routine 3 more times (for a total of 4)
- Cool down with a brisk walk for 2 minutes
That’s it.
You can do the routine on a stationary bike or other gym equipment.
That’s it for now my friends; see you all the next time.
