Minimum Exercise for Maximum Life

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In this article, we are going to cover:

• What is exercise.
• What can happen to the human body when not enough physical activity or exercise is provided.
• What is the minimum amount of exercise with minimal equipment (even at home) one can do to achieve optimum health while increase longevity.
• How to incorporate minimal exercise into a busy routine.

You will walk away from this article with an exercise schedule that does not require you to buy expensive equipment nor requires you to spend oodles of hours in the gym, while still developing/maintaining a certain level of strength and fitness to live a long happy life, so stay focused for the next little while (assuming you have a longer attention span than average humans, which is 8 seconds) and this might do you and your loved ones some good.

What is exercise?

If we look at the dictionary, terms “health”, “fitness” and “exercise” are defined as below:

Health: The state of being free from illness or injury.

Fitness: the condition of being physically fit and healthy

Exercise:

• activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness.
• a process or activity carried out for a specific purpose, especially one concerned with a specified area or skill.

In the book “Body by Science”, Dr. Doug McGuff goes a bit deeper to explain these terms.

The basis of the definitions proposed is “catabolism” and “anabolism“.

The human body is never static, it is a dynamic organism that carries a perpetual balancing act between catabolism (breaking down) and anabolism (building up). For example, the blood-clotting system is continously breaking down and building up clots, to ensure smooth blood flow and still stop any bleeding that should occur.

Life , in essence. depends on this precise balance between catabolic and anabolic states and this balance is what defines health of an organism.

– “Body by Science” by Doug McGuff and John little

On this basis, the following definitions were proposed:

Health: A physiological state in which there is an absence of disease or pathology and that maintains the necessary balance between catabolic and anabolic states.

Every day, the human body must face various challenges such as exposure to toxins, muscular exertion, and the presence of pathogenic bacterias and viruses. If it does not successfully adapt to these, it is ill-equipped to survive. Therefore fitness can be defined as:

“The bodily state of being physiologically capable of handling challenges that exist above a resting threshold of activity (body’s ability to withstand, recover from and adapt to environmental threats.)”

Exercise: “A specific activity that stimulates a positive physiological adaptation that serves to enhance fitness and health and does not undermine health in the process of enhancing fitness”.

It is important to mention the difference between physical activity and exercise here as well.

Physical activity is defined as movement that involves the contraction of muscles. These include activities such as housework, gardening, walking, climbing stairs. It is not a planned, purposeful activity performed with the intention of acquiring fitness.

What happens to the body if no exercise is provided?

You might have heard all the risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle such as coronary heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, breathlessness, flabby body, stiff joints, osteoporosis, poor posture, being overweight, lack of energy for your sexual relationship, lack of energy for your children and grandchildren.

Let’s explore how some of these problems can occur in the body.

Heart Disease

The heart is a muscle, and just like any other muscle, it needs activity/exercise to keep working properly.

Living a sedentary lifestyle and being overweight, increases the work for the heart to supply the necessary amount of blood (oxygen and nutrients) to the tissues. This increased amount of blood flow through the blood vessels increases the pressure on artery walls and can lead to high blood pressure or hypertension resulting in all sorts of cardiovascular diseases. Interestingly, these changes tend to develop slowly over many years, which is a reminder to not wait for these problems to appear to take an action.

Moreover, being inactive can lead to fatty material building up in the arteries (the blood vessels that carry blood to the organs). Damaged and clogged arteries can lead to a heart attack or a stroke.

Type 2 Diabetes

In simple terms, when we eat carbohydrates or a large amount of protein, the hormone insulin gets secreted by the pancreas. Insulin unlocks the cells in the body so they can accept the glucose in the blood. However, if the cells are already full they will not accept this glucose, which results in the creation of more insulin by the pancreas.

This cycle of cells being full of glucose and the pancreas making more and more insulin in the long term results in a situation where cells become resistant to insulin and the blood sugar level starts remaining high. Over time this can lead to pre-diabetes and then to Type-2 Diabetes.

The science: Under non-active conditions, the transport molecule “GLUT-1” is thought to be involved in glucose transport to the brain, fat cells, and muscle. The increase of insulin accelerates this transport mechanism and also increases the number of other sugar transported “GLUT-4” which helps “GLUT-1” to get even more sugar into these organs.

The interesting thing here is that just like insulin, exercise can also increase the “GLUT-4” transporters, meaning, exercise can provide the same blood sugar control as insulin, without strain on the pancreas, the likelihood of insulin resistance, and making sure more sugar is transported to skeletal muscle rather than fat cells (adipose tissue).

Aging

“Sarcopenia” is the term used for age-related muscle loss, which is a natural phenomenon that starts at the ripe age of 30. Muscle mass in the human body starts decreasing approximately 3-8% every decade starting at age 30, and the decline is higher after the age of 60. This loss of muscle mass in addition to progressive fat accumulation leaves the body at a higher risk of injury which can lead to functional dependence and disability.

This means that rather than enjoying those years with the result of years of hard work, you might end up being a weak individual at the risk of developing various age-related issues. (As per CDC, Falls are the leading cause of death among adults of age 65 and older).

Another aspect of aging is “telomere length”. Telomeres are an essential part of human cells that affect how our cells age. They are the changing protective caps on the ends of your DNA strands that get shorter with age, every time a cell divide until a cell cannot divide further. They are like a biological clock, the older we get, the shorter our telomeres get. Telomere shortening has been linked to various diseases such as dementia, diabetes, cardiovascular and even skin disorders.

Interestingly, exercise has been directly correlated with this phenomenon of telomere length shortening. What this means is that even though someone’s chronological age can be 40, biologically (based on their health status and telomere length) they can be 25 years old.

In a 2017 Brigham Young University study it was concluded that adults with high physical activity levels have telomeres with a biological aging advantage of nine years over those who are sedentary, and a seven-year advantage compared to those who are moderately active. To be highly active, women had to engage in 30 minutes of jogging per day (40 minutes for men), five days a week.

Minimal Effective Dose

Minimal Effective Dose (MED) is an idea popularized by Tim Ferris in both his books “The 4-Hour Work Week” and “The 4-Hour Body”. It is described as “the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome”. This idea originates from medicine, however, it can be applied to multiple areas of life, such as exercise. One example of this is boiling water. If the water reached the temperature of 100 degrees celsius, boiling it further will not boil it anymore, thus any more heating is unnecessary.

Exercising for a long-time has potential side effects on the human body, such as increased injury risk, increased wear and tear as we age, overtraining and the most important, time consumption. With MED, you are looking for the biggest bang for your buck, that is, the maximum amount of results you can get in the minimum time possible.

Ben Greenfield, among one of America’s topmost trainers and biohackers, describes the optimal longevity exercise program to have the following 5 components. Read on to find out what minimal amount of exercise will check all the boxes for such a program.

1 – Cardiovascular Fitness.

Defined as the maximum amount of oxygen you can utilize, also known as VO2 max.

Based on this soccer-players study, the minimum effective dose to maintain cardiovascular fitness seems to be 5 rounds of 4 minute hard efforts (such as sprinting) with full recovery between rounds, once every two weeks.

2 – Muscle Endurance and Aerobaic Capacity.

Defined as the amount of work your muscles can endure while keeping force output high.

The highly researched Tabata protocol (4 min of total exercise – 20-second effort 10-second rest) when performed 2-4 times a week has shown enough potential in various studies to improve muscle endurance and aerobic capacity even more than steady-state cardio. That is 16 min of total exercise per week max, which can be done at any place with no equipment! The easiest exercise choice for me when doing Tabata is mountain climbers.

Tip: I use this timer for my Tabata sessions.

3 – Ideal ratio of strength and muscle mass

It means the maximum amount of strength you can muster in one-tightly packed muscle fibers.

The science-backed SuperSlow exercise protocol by Dr. Doug McGuff in the book “Body by Science” is one of the most effective and safe protocols to maintain and build sustainable strength and muscle mass while aging. The protocol requires one to exercise once a week (yes, once), for 12 min.

Personally, I modify this protocol a bit to put enough stress on the body for muscle growth, since I work out at home without machines (also performing it 3 times a week).

The protocol is as follows: You perform a few multi-joint exercises (preferably on machines to reduce the risk of injury) in an extremely slow manner (30-90 sec) per exercise, and each exercise is only performed once. The weight should be 85% of your 1 rep max, and the last rep for each exercise should feel the hardest (almost like muscle failure).

An example of such as workout session would be:

1. Chest
   Machine: Chest-Press
   At-home: Push-up (with weighted bag/vest to increase resistance)
   
2. Back
   Machine: Pulldown
   At-home: Pull-up (if you have a pull-up bar) or Bent-over row (Dumbbells or Resistance-Bands)
   
3. Legs
   Machine: Leg-Press
   At-home: Kettlebell/Dumbbell squat
   
4. Shoulders
   Machine: Machine Overhead Press
   At-home: Overhead Press (Dumbbell or Resistance Bands)

Finishing the workout with a few minutes of planks can give an amazing full-body workout.
If you choose to do it at home, you can pull this off with three basic types of equipment:
Kettlebell, Resistance Bands, and a Pull-Up Bar.

Another high-intensity workout you can include in your arsenal is the “Scientific 7-minute workout“, which requires, just a chair, a wall, your body weight, and as the name mentions 7-minutes.

4 – Maximum Mitochondrial Density

As we all have studied in biology, “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell”. Having more mitochondria packed into muscles can help utilize more fat and more glucose, increasing energy.

The Tabata sets are enough to trigger mitochondrial biogenesis (the process by which cells increase mitochondrial numbers) in the skeletal muscle.

Another exercise that can trigger this process is a few sets of intense brief sprints (can be 4-30 seconds).

5 – Optimized fat burning, metabolic efficiency and blood sugar control.

Maximizing the body’s ability to burn fatty acids as primary fuel and avoiding frequent blood sugar fluctuations.

This is more of a lifestyle-based pillar than exercise.

“Glycemic variability”, which means blood sugar fluctuations over a given interval of time, is an important factor to control when it comes to burning extra fat and controlling blood sugar so the risk of developing insulin resistance remains low. The most important factor to control in this case is “Post-prandial glucose”, which simply means blood sugar level after a meal, which can be high after a carbohydrate-rich meal or a heavy protein-based meal (such as fish or whey protein).

Interestingly, a 30-second movement (such as squats or jumping jacks) or a 15 min casual walk after a meal can provide enough control on the blood glucose level after a meal.

Summary

So how would you incorporate the required minimal effective doses into your schedule?

The way I do it is to schedule a worth week of the plan into the calendar as shown below. (zoom in to see it clearly)

Following a minimalistic protocol for longevity does not mean you should not do any other activities, since, other physical activities do have additional benefits, such as hiking improves stamina, and playing sports such as Badminton or Archery improves hand-eye co-ordination.

January 2022 Challenge

• Start by creating your own personalized 1-week schedule in your calendar incorporating various components of fitness.
• For each exercise/component write down what you are going to do and how, based on your current level of fitness.
  • For instance:
    • Stay active all day = 5 min walking break every 30 min of work, 15 min walk after meals
    • 15 min SuperSlow Strength Training = 90 sec Pushups, Pullups, Squats and Planks each every Mon, Thu evening.
    • 2 hour long walk every Saturday morning in a fasted state.
    • 4 min Tabata twice a week (can be as simple as jumping jacks, or tough as kettlebell swings)
• Visit your schedule next week, and use the feedback to plan upcoming days (what you did not do, why and how can you do it this week)

As you can see, the goal here is not to look like an athlete, but to improve your current level of fitness in a minimal time.

References

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23899560/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25844882
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24561653
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21451146
• https://journals.lww.com/acsm-essr/fulltext/2020/07000/exercise_and_glut4.2.aspx
• https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170510115211.htm
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091743517301470
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128161937000221
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/features/health/healthyliving/exerciserisk.shtml
• https://drscottlear.com/2020/02/05/what-counts-as-exercise/
• https://medium.com/@nicholas.g.graham/finding-your-training-minimum-effective-dose-med-7e26b4beed11
• https://www.livestrong.com/article/377725-what-happens-to-your-body-when-you-dont-exercise/
• https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/biohacking-articles/best-ways-to-control-blood-sugar/
• https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/anti-aging-articles/how-to-look-good-naked-and-live-a-long-time/
• https://www.marksdailyapple.com/5-ways-to-get-the-most-bang-for-your-workout-buck/#ixzz3l4QkVlhi