Article: Science Says 1 Minute of This Kind of Exercise May Equal 45 Minutes of Jogging, by Melanie Curtin, in Inc. See following link to original article
Do I think telling people that they can get many of the benefits of a 45 minute jog by doing 60 seconds of high intensity exercise (that's the "kind" of exercise mentioned in the title) will get people to exercise? Absolutely not. In fact, because it is so simple (and true, by the way), most people will dismiss it. "Yeah, right," is probably going to be the most common response this article, and this science gets for a little while.
What is important about this article, and more specifically about this research, is that our traditional notions of health continue to be challenged. This excites me greatly because conventional wisdom around diet and exercise has done me no favors for most of my life. It is almost as if people totally unqualified to tell us how to take care of our bodies were suddenly tasked with giving us how-to manuals on everything from weight loss to water drinking. That is, in fact, close to what happened. Sometime in the 40s and 50s the government got really interested in helping people get healthy. Here we are several generations later in an obesity crisis that seems to get worse each year, despite our efforts.
This post is not about bashing the government. It is about encouraging you that what you believe about how to maintain and improve your health might be incorrect. "No pain, no gain" is not entirely true. "Calories in, calories out" is misleading at best. It is time to take another look at your health, and I highly recommend starting with science.