There’s a 5 minute workout that will help you live longer, and you don’t need an app to show you how to do it. It’s also not a HIIT workout that involves multiple butt-kicking moves like lunge jumps or burpees, and you don’t need any fancy equipment like kettlebells or stability balls.
So what is this miracle exercise? It’s good ol’ fashioned running.
According to Yahoo! Health, less might be more when it comes to pounding the pavement. A recent study found that participants only had to run 50 minutes or less per week to get the same benefit as those who ran more than three hours per week. The benefit in question was three extra years of life.
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The study was recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Lead researcher Dr. D.C. Lee, assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University, said that 30 to 60 minutes of running per week is enough to match the health benefits of long distance runners. This means that you could run five minutes a day, six days a week to potentially increase your life expectancy.
The study also found that “all the runners had a 30 percent lower risk of death in general and a 45 percent lower risk of death from heart disease or stroke” when compared to non-runners. Previous studies have found that too much running might actually shorten life expectancy.
These findings should be very encouraging to those who don’t like to hit the gym because they think that it takes too much time to put in an effective workout. It should be easy for anyone to squeeze in a daily 5 minute workout by running — just think of it as being the length of two commercial breaks.
You could try finding a new area to run every day to avoid getting bored with your run, and you could mix things up by throwing in some hills or stairs. You could also try interval training on certain days by sprinting for a minute and running at a brisk pace for a minute. You could even convince a friend to run with you — try making things interesting by racing each other for a mile.
Just find ways to make it fun so that you’ll stick with it — you’ll get the most significant benefits if you run consistently.
