20 Minutes of Exercise Will Make A Dent In Your Heart Disease Risk, But More Is Better

A British Medical Journal study says that 20 minutes a week can provide some health benefits as compared to no exercise at all, but the general population shouldn’t use this as an excuse to exercise less often.

“If you can only get to the gym once a week or engage in a program of exercise for only 20 minutes a week, you will see some modest benefits to that,” says Jason D’Amore, MD, research director of the emergency medicine department at North Shore University Hospital. “A lot of us now have either pedometers or other things like that on our smartphones that are trying to get them to be more active.”

Dr. D’Amore suggests that people try to add little walks to their day by doing things like walking around their office building, home or block. Someone who increases their daily steps from 5,000 to 10,000 will see a great deal of health benefits in the form of lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

“People like to hear news that makes them feel better about what they’re already doing,” Dr. D’Amore says. “And if you can tell someone that they can get away with only exercising 20 minutes a week and it’s going to save their lives and make them a better person overall, people would love to hear that. Although that may be true, there may be some benefit to that, I think the actual answer is much more complicated than that and we all need to get out there and move more beyond just 20 minutes a week.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that adults each week get 150 minutes of aerobic exercise that is moderately intense as well as muscle-conditioning exercise; 75 minutes of aerobic vigorous exercise a week coupled with muscle-conditioning; or some combination of the two.

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