Least fit people need to do more exercise than fittest to get same benefit – study | Fitness

According to the research, the least fit people need to exercise 30-50 minutes more per week than the fittest people to achieve the same reduction in cardiovascular risk.

Researchers examined data from more than 17,000 British adults who participated in the UK Biobank study. They completed a cycling test to measure their baseline cardiorespiratory fitness (estimated VO).₂ max) and wore a fitness tracker for a week to record typical exercise levels.

Adults ages 40 to 69 were followed for an average of eight years; There were more than 1,200 cardiovascular events during this time, including heart attacks, atrial fibrillation strokes, and heart failure.

The NHS recommends adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, such as brisk walking, cycling or running, every week.

The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that achieving this guideline of two and a half hours of exercise was associated with an 8-9% reduction in cardiovascular risk.

“Given that a large portion of the population does not meet even this criterion, the basic public health message remains clear: Achieving 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity per week provides meaningful cardiovascular protection regardless of fitness level,” the authors conclude.

The research also calculates that more exercise further reduces the risk, but those with the least fitness need around 30-50 minutes of extra exercise per week to get the same benefits.

To reduce the risk by 20%, those who were least fit needed 370 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, while those with the highest fitness levels needed only 340 minutes.

To reduce the chance of a cardiovascular event by more than 30%, the least fit person would need to work out for more than 10 hours (610 minutes), while the fittest person would need to do just over nine hours (560 minutes).

“This finding highlights the larger challenges faced by deconditioned populations,” the study concludes.

“While current moderate-to-vigorous physical activity guidelines provide a universal but modest margin of safety, optimal cardiovascular protection may require significantly higher activity volumes.”

“Future guidelines and implementation strategies may need to distinguish between the minimum volume of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity required for a basic margin of safety and the significantly higher volumes required for optimal cardiovascular risk reduction.”

The findings appear to challenge previous research which found that walking just 4,000 steps a day would reduce older people’s risk of dying prematurely by around a quarter.

But experts said recommending more than nine hours of exercise a week was “misguided”.

Aiden Doherty, professor of biomedical informatics at the University of Oxford, said: “We can’t put too much weight on the 560-610 minutes of exercise per week figure.

“Obviously there would be cardiovascular benefits for people who can do more than 1 hour and 20 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity per day, but this is not a sensible public health message.

“The public should continue to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity per week; more is better; every movement counts.”

Responding to the findings, a Sport England spokesperson said it was vital to increase activity levels to keep people healthier for longer: “Emerging research like this reinforces the importance of helping more people get active more often.

“Sport England’s own research shows that activity alleviates health problems for both individuals and the NHS, preventing 1.3 million cases of depression, 600,000 diabetes and 57,000 dementia.”