What is this i'm hearing about how exercising for more than 30 minutes is pointless???

I've been reading around the forums and once in a while i'll come across one where someone is saying that when one works out for longer than 30 minutes it becomes pointless and that there arent too many advantages to it...

I do not understand why this would be true.

Answers??

Last night on the Evening News there is a new medical study report that shows women who are at risk for heart disease need to work out 60 - 90 minutes a day  

excert below full article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17231469/

?This is a really good gathering of evidence in women,? after years of studies done mostly on men, said Dr. Sidney Smith, heart disease chief at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and past heart association president.The evidence shows that many more women than thought are at risk of heart disease and stroke ? even those whose only weakness was failure to exercise every day. Heart disease is the leading killer of men and women worldwide.

The advice for women:

• Exercise. Get at least 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise on most and preferably all days, 60 to 90 minutes if you need to lose weight.
• Diet. Eat mostly fruits and vegetables, whole grain and high-fiber foods, fish at least twice a week, and little salt. Limit saturated fat to less than 10 percent of calories, 7 percent if possible, and trans fats to less than 1 percent. Limit alcohol to one drink or less a day.
• Don?t smoke. Use nicotine replacement products if needed to stop.
• Weight. Keep body-mass index under 25.
• Supplements. Consider omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil) if you already have heart disease. Do not take extra folic acid or antioxidants like vitamins E, C and beta carotene, for heart disease prevention.
• Blood pressure, cholesterol. Keep under control, with medicine if needed. Keep LDL or bad cholesterol under 100 if at high risk of heart disease and under 70 if at very high risk.
• Aspirin. Daily use is already urged for women at high risk, and the guidelines now say the dose can go up to 325 milligrams. All other women should consider 81 milligram ?baby aspirin? daily or 100 milligrams every other day for stroke prevention.

Funny, I've always heard that working out for LESS than 30 minutes is pointless because it only starts to become a cardiovascular workout after that time.

What I've heard is working out for less than 10 minutes at a time is pointless. Everything greater than 12 or so minutes can help your cardio vascular.. until.. I think it's about 3 hours. Anything more than 3 hours is too much stress on the cardio vascular system.

That's what *I*'ve heard :)

What I've heard is more then 1 hour causing problems. Your body will run out of stored food. It starts becoming an endurance event if you go too long and the body isn't really designed to do that.

That's what I heard -)

Hi,

working out is ALWAYS good if it isn't extreme and beyond ones capabilities. I play Handball in a team for 2 hours on a Monday night, and it certainly isn't pointless.

The body has a certain temperature and thi stemperature fist of all needs to heat up to burn calories, which usually takes about 1/2 an hour, therefore working out for less than 30 minutes isn't ideal, although not pointless either.

How do you think professional sportspeople exersice? Less than 30 minutes? Certainly not and they are all toned and healthy.

Hmm... well, what I think, given the lack of cold hard fact here, is that ANY exercise is beneficial based on your current activity level and your capability. If you are an extremely inactive person with quite a few... barriers to get a full-on workout happening, walking around the track for 5-10 minutes is a good start and certainly isn't worthless. It's a small step that your body can handle and that can lead to progress.

In my personal opinion, yes you want to maximize your exercise routine, but if you can only do 30 minutes a day, but you can somehow find time to do it every day, or more often than not, that's excellent! That is DEFINITELY going to help you and will be much easier to work with in the long run. If you can fit in a cardio/strength/flexibility program for 1-1.5 hours a day and it makes you feel good, you look forward to it... that's awesome too.

For what it's worth, my physical assessment advisor at the gym told me that you need at least 30 minutes at your optimal heart rate to achieve maximal *cardiovascular* levels.

Exactly what I think JAYD295mp

:)

Your body doesn't start to burn fat until 12-15 minutes into the workout. Thats where our wonderful surgeon general cam eup with the idea of 30 minutes 3 times a week. Depending on your fitness level anywhere from 30-45 minutes is ideal. if you are an elite athlete obviously you will need more. I play full soccer games 2 times week so i got 90 minutes of cardio in twice a week. But I have been doing that for 28 years!

The best advice you can follow is what your body tells you, if you see results then you are on the right track, if you don't see results something has to change!

I do cardio 5 to 6 times a week at least 45 minutes..  I don't do much strength training as of yet,    My understanding is that you need to focus on cardio and be able to maintain an pretty intense cardio fo 45 minutes before you add on strength training

i read that too-knarik.  and i think what it is, is that some people say doing the same cardio routine for more than 45 minutes is no longer beneficial.  i think the idea is that your body gets too grooved and you just aren't really burning many more calories.  personally, i can't stay on the same cardio machine for that long cuz i get too bored :) so if you want to take on some other form of exercise after those 30-45 minutes of cardio--that's awesome.  i usually get about an hour of exercise every day.

I don't know about that kiigan... for the first two weeks I started at the gym I was only doing 30-45 minutes of cardio because that was all I could handle. Since I've been getting in better and better shape I go for 1.5 to 2 hours of cardio a day and I can tell the difference. I'm still losing at the same rate and I'm eating way more than I was with just a 30-45 minute activity so if what you were saying was valid, I would be maintaining if not gaining weight.

i'm not making any claims. that's just what i've read.

Well. I'm doing thirty-60 minutes of cardio about 5 days a week. MOst times it's only for 40 minutes five times a week. I have just started about a month ago so i'm not exactly sure if this is the right thing for me to be doing. That said, i am taking in the total net calories that i am meant to be taking to reach my goal when my activity level is at light activity. SO, i SHOULD be seeing results within the next month, no?

My boyfriend mentioned this to me today, and my question is...what do they consider "exercise"?

I walk around campus everyday for at least 45-60 minutes...does this count as an hr of exercise everyday?  Or do they mean exercise in which your heart rate reaches a certain point?  (I exercise at a gym 4-6 days/week anyway..just curious on this)

It really depends what you mean by pointless. Of course, no exercise is EVER pointless - because it is always beneficial to your cardiovascular health.

In terms of fat loss, if you are running/jogging/walking at a steady pace at 75% of your max heart rate, it is said that you should try to exercise for 40-60 minutes, as you have to stay in the 'fat burning zone'. After 20 minutes, you reach this 'zone' and you have to maintain it in order for optimum calorie burn. This is because your metabolism spikes, and therefore burns the most energy dring this time.

However, if you do something like High Intensity Interval Training (where you combine periods of moderate intensity exercise with bursts of extremely high intensity activity), you only have to exercise for 15-20 minutes (in fact, you won't be able to go for longer than that). And the reasoning behind this is that not only does your metabolism spike, but it stays on a 'high' long after you have finished exercising. See, with HIIT your RMR (resting metabolic rate) is increased for up to 24 hours after exercise, unlike longer, low-intensity aerobic workouts. Basically, HIIT increases the length of time it takes your body to recover from each exercise session.

Most athletes combine HIIT with longer, low-intensity aerobic workouts. Ever seen track stars or football players doing sprints on the track or the field? That's what they're doing.

Strength training also has a huge, huge impact on your overall fitness and fat burning capabilities. Most people would be able to get away with 2 days of overall strength training and 2-3 days of 30-40 min cardio a week for a great fat loss rate.

So here's what I've heard, from being on a collegiate crew team.  I'm not an expert, but here goes:

How long/hard you work out depends on your goals.  If you want to increase muscle mass, do weight training.  The more muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolism rate=more calories burned sitting still. 

If you want to increase your cardiovascular (aerobic) capacity, work out for longer amounts of time at a relatively high heart rate.  This burns glycogen stores in muscles.  (this is why runners carbo-load before races, to have more glycogen and prevent burnout.)  On my team, we aim for an hour or so at a 150-160 heart rate per aerobic workout. 

If your goal is primarily to lose fat, you need to work out at a slightly lower heart rate.  Up to a certain heart rate, your body burns max calories in the form of fat stores, but past that, you shift into aerobic work and your body burns glycogen instead.  Both improve your health alot, and obviously both burn calories, but they draw the energy from different sources.  Which heart rate is right for you depends on your age and what kind of shape you are in.  Most gyms have charts, with a range of "cardio" heart rates and slightly lower "fat burn" rates.  Only start off with what your body can handle and be sure to check your heart rate often during the workout-- it is almost never what you expect it to be.  I find machines to be less accurate than counting beats manually by a clock.

Hope this helps a little, and feel free to ask if I was unclear about any.

wasnt someone just the other day saying how jumping rope for 10 mins equals 30 mins of jogging or something????

i think any sort of moving around is worth it. taking the stairs, walking around the block, anything.

ALright. well i'm 18 years old female and 5 foot 7 inches.

I DO want to burn fat but i feel like when i'm in my optimal burning zone it is no longer a challenge once i get used to it .In this case should I take my jogging up a notch?

so according to brittone, if I want to lose fat, I should not do high cardio workouts? I've heard that either walking or sprinting burns fat but not jogging and I never understood why. I always do the elliptical or run for an hour everyday but I should monitor my heart rate and not go too intense beyond fat burn range into cardio range?