How Much Is Enough?

What can you do with 5 to 10 minutes, or less than 1% of your day to make a marked increase in your cardiovascular health for the future? Well according to the American Journal of Cardiology the answer is to run. Now I don’t mean gut wrenching hill sprints with your heart rate soaring into the 180 beat per minute (BPM) range, but rather a nice light jog. The AJCC released a sweeping study looking at 55,137 adults with ages ranging from 18-100 (avg age 44) assessing all cause and cardiovascular mortality in proportion to running time. Researchers found that compared to never runners, individuals who ran at least six miles a week saw a decrease in all cause mortality and CVD mortality from a hazard ratio of 1.00 (baseline for never runners) to .46. A dive into the data seems to show a sweet spot for this population of running 3 times per week at a pace around 7mph ( 8:30 mile pace ) between 6-10 miles per week.

http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/64/5/472