I see a lot of articles about the most “effective” or “efficient” form of exercise. These often focus on pretty intense forms of exercise, like high intensity interval training (HIIT). The focus of these articles are usually either that this type of workout will give you more benefits than your other forms of exercise (“using HIIT in resistance training could be the key to supercharging your strength gains“), or that the exercise will give you a similar benefit in a lot less time (“A hot new type of workout you can do in under 10 minutes is gaining traction, and scientists are into it“).
However, in my opinion most people don’t really need to ask themselves whether their workout is maximally effective or efficient. Because most people don’t exercise.
If you are considering changing your workout, or starting a new exercise program, the most important question to ask yourself is this:
Am I willing and able to do this exercise program for at least 12 months?
Preferably you’d like to pick an exercise program that you think you’ll be able to keep up indefinitely, but 12 months is a pretty good starting point. If you look at an exercise program and don’t feel there’s a good chance you can maintain it for at least 1 year, then it’s just not going to have any meaningful health impact over the long haul.
First of all, this means that your exercise program should ideally be something that you enjoy, or at the very least tolerate. This is the reason why I am pretty ambivalent about HIIT and other forms of intense exercise for the general public. They are great exercise, but only if you actually do them. And no matter how efficient it may be, people like my parents aren’t likely to actually enjoy doing HIIT, or any other form of high intensity exercise. That’s not to take anything away from HIIT – it is a really good way to improve your fitness, and I do it fairly often – but if it doesn’t sound like something you’d enjoy, then just look for something else that sounds more appealing.
Beyond simply enjoying an activity, being able to maintain an exercise program for 1-2 years (or longer) requires that you consider several other issues as well:
Can you afford it?
Do you have time to do it on a regular basis?
Is it available in your community?
Do you have the skills/equipment needed to participate?
If you can’t fit the activity into your lifestyle, it’s just not going to be sustainable.
This is why I (and many other exercise researchers) are such big fans of walking. It is affordable, relatively easy to fit into your schedule, and requires very little skill or equipment. It’s a lot less efficient than HIIT, but a whole lot better than nothing.
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