Many people wonder, especially when they start training, if it is better to do an intense training and consume a lot of calories or do a light exercise and lose little by little.
A study conducted by cardiologist Matthew Nayor along with other people who make up his team at the Boston University School of Medicine, decided to investigate to what extent intense exercise can put a person’s health at risk, and compare which of the two types of exercise further improve a person’s health status.
What are the differences between mild and moderate or intense
When comparing these two types of exercises, it is important to differentiate between light, moderate or even intense physical activity. To do this, the doctor and her researchers used steps per minute to measure the intensity of an exercise.
In the case of light exercise or low-level effort, 60 to 99 steps per minute should be done, in the case of moderate exercise between 100 and 129 steps per minute and, finally, more than 130 steps per minute for an intense physical exercise.
What is the memory effect and how important is it?
Our body has a memory effect, with which a person who has already done physical activity all his life and has a downtime due to external or personal circumstances, when he returns to physical activity it will be easier for him to regain the level he had previously.
This is important since, in the study, observed that people who performed moderate or high intensity exercises were more physically fitregardless of how long they were in a sedentary state, recovering is easier.
On the other hand, a person who has not carried out any activity or an activity of mild intensity, the negative effect of sedentary lifestyle was more incident, since it was shown that it has a negative state on the person that can be compensated by performing an exercise with a higher intensity elevated.
What are the conclusions of the study
After conducting an investigation with a sample of 2,000 people using the Framingham Heart Study as a reference, It was shown that an exercise considered moderate or intense, which is equivalent to 100-129 steps per minute in the moderate and more than 130 steps per minute in the intense, increases physical condition practically three times more than a walk, which is considered an exercise mild intensity.
What’s more, vigorous exercise was shown to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular risk and is associated with greater objective fitness. Furthermore, the individuals who performed higher steps showed values of maximum oxygen consumption above the average, which indicates that their lung capacity and recovery also improved.
It also concludes that the fact that walking does not have such an impact on physical condition does not mean that we should continue to be slaves of sedentary lifestyle. That is why walks are very good for people who, by medical order, cannot perform moderate or intense physical exercise.
But, the doctor insists that if your goal is to improve your physical condition and to slow down aging in a way, it is more effective to do a moderate intensity exercise than a low intensity exercise, because as we have commented previously it is three times more efficient than performing a long walk.
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