Message from Professor Obvious – exercise is good for your health.
But a more complex question is the relative health value of harder vs easier exercise.
Or more scientifically, is 1 min of vigorous exercise really worth much more than easier stuff like walking (moderate) and even lighter things like gardening and cleaning (light)?
Conventional wisdom – double the vigorous stuff to allow for the extra benefits.
20 min jogging = 40 min walking
This is old science based on self report epidemiology. New analysis of wearables gives much more accurate comparisons.
New UK Biobank study (73k+ people, real wrist-tracker data) just dropped in Nature. They followed people to “end points” – death, diabetes, cancer, heart attacks.
Findings: 1 min of vigorous exercise = 4 to 9 mins moderate OR a whopping 53 to 156 mins light activity for slashing risks of death, heart disease, diabetes & cancer.
For diabetes 1 min of vigorous was worth 9 min of moderate.
What’s your go-to harder workout?
Just to be clear, there is an extraordinary benefit for all activities. But maybe we do need to really act like the live animals we are and hit our full physical potential a couple of times a week.
Read the full paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63475-2
