50 Is The New 30 When It Comes to Workouts

by Martha Edwards (Subscribe to Martha Edwards's posts)
Feb 16th 2009 4:00PM

Categories: Fitness

Content with getting just 30 minutes of exercise a day? Yeah, I bet you are -- half an hour is not a lot of time to set aside for a workout. And you could get away with it and still call your lifestyle healthy -- until now, that is. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) has decided that 30 minutes usually just isn't enough anymore -- you should be thinking more like 50 minutes a session now.

In 2001, it was recommended that everyone get 150 minutes of exercise a week -- so, 30 minutes a day for five days -- to maintain a healthy weight. Nowadays, that number is more like 300 minutes a week, and if you're working out five days a week, that's 40 to 60 minutes a session.

Additionally, the ACSM also recommends a healthy diet and regular resistance training. "Resistance training does not enhance weight loss but may increase fat-free mass and increase loss of fat mass and is associated with reductions in health risk," the writing committee notes.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pat 2-16-2009 @ 9:56PM

I'd like to know if this is because our food intake continues to decline. By decline I mean more and more refined processed foods and less whole unrefined food?

Maybe if you eat quality food in proper portions you will not need to exercise for 50 minutes each day?

The final question might be can you maintain a low body fat percentage with a good percentage of muscle mass on 30 minutes a week? If so then you probably do not need more exercise time.

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u262f 2-17-2009 @ 6:02AM

"Just isn't enough anymore"...? The question is enough for what? Reading the article, their recommendations haven't changed. They're still saying 150 min to maintain weight and be healthy. The new 300 min figure is to sustain significant long-term weight loss. The main difference is that, these days, more people probably need to sustain significant long-term weight loss than before.