Good news: more is more 🥲

In fitness lore, there has long been a magic number for exercise that moves the needle on protecting your heart health, and that number has been 150 minutes a week. Every doctor, every public health poster, every article your mom sent you at 7am with no context — they all landed on 150. And if you're hitting that number, you've probably been feeling pretty accomplished about it, because most of the population isn't even close.

New research just published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine is reconsidering that number, and depending on how much you already exercise, you're either going to feel vindicated or personally victimized by it.

Researchers tracked physical activity using actual wrist-worn accelerometers — so, real data, not the self-reported kind where everyone somehow becomes an olympian on paper — and found that to get a greater than 30% reduction in cardiovascular risk, adults needed somewhere between 560 and 610 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week. That's roughly an hour and twenty minutes a day, which is more time than most people spend on anything they don't get paid for. And only 12% of the people in the study actually got there, so if you're panicking, at least you have company.

Now before this becomes the most discouraging thing you've read today: the same researchers, in the same paper, called 150 minutes "a robust universal minimum" that delivers meaningful cardiovascular protection no matter how fit you are. Independent researchers at Oxford reviewed it and went further, calling the 560-minute headline "misleading." So nobody is saying 150 doesn't work — what they're saying is that it was always a starting line that got marketed as a finish line, and the benefits keep climbing well past it in ways that nobody was really talking about.

The part that's actually fun

There was a second finding in here that deserves more attention than it got: fitter people got more cardiovascular benefit per minute of exercise than less fit people did. Every hour you've already logged at the gym is making every future hour more effective, which is a pretty compelling reason not to skip a Thursday because your couch looked at you the right way 👁️🛋️👁️

We covered a Harvard study a few weeks ago that found exercise variety was independently linked to a 19% lower risk of dying from all causes, regardless of total volume — and it wasn't just gym workouts that counted. Walking, cycling, yoga, gardening, yard work — all of it contributed, and the people who mixed in a wider range of activities outlived the people who stuck to one thing, even at the same total volume. Put that together with this one and the picture gets interesting: how much you move matters, what kinds of movement you do matters, and a Tuesday walk around the neighborhood is doing more for you than sitting on the couch wishing you'd gone to the gym.

And every bit of it also helps provide neuro-protective benefits keeping brains sharp and kicking Alzheimer's right in the lobes.

Under one roof

Our gym is designed for exactly that kind of mixing — strength, cardio, yoga, recovery, classes, and a little turf work to round out your Friday Night Lights training montage — and the research keeps confirming that using more of what's already in the building is one of the best investments you can make in the long game. So if you've ever wondered whether those extra sessions past the 150-minute mark are doing anything: yes, measurably, and you're ahead of about 88% of the population. Which probably won't surprise your knees, but it's nice to have the data to back it up.

Playing the long game with you,
Your West Coast Fitness Family

PS: If coming a little more is an "over my dead body" situation, maybe that's your sign to work with a trainer who's committed to making working out less dreadful. Free Coaching Mondays are still available — 30 minutes of one-on-one time with a trainer, two sessions per member, no strings. Sign up at the front desk 💪 It's the free member perk that not nearly enough people are snatching up.

PPS: Since the turf is blue, should we be calling it the Smurf Turf? 🤔 I'll start until someone tells me to stop 😅