The benefits of even minimal weekly activity

Arnold Schwarzenegger got back to exercising regularly after his 2018 emergency open-heart surgery. The 72-year-old goes to Gold’s Gym at 7 a.m. every day. Midday, he takes a 45-minute bike ride. In the evening, he does an athome workout.

Be inspired! Set a goal of 150 minutes a week if you’re a workout novice. Most folks are. Only 23% of U.S. adults get the recommended minimum exercise of 30 minutes, five days a week.

Moving more can save your life. One study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that for adults ages 25 to 39, around 10% of deaths can be attributed to getting less than 150 minutes of activity a week; for adults age 70 and older, it’s about 9%. Another study found that if everyone exercised for 150 minutes weekly, there’d be 7.6% fewer deaths from cardiovascular disease, 7.2% fewer from renal and breast cancers and 8.2% fewer from dementia.

One smart technique: Get up 30 minutes earlier and go for a 10-minute walk before breakfast, walk up and down interior stairs or ride a stationary bike. Lunch time and after dinner every day, take a brisk walk (as intense as you can) for 10 minutes. Before dinner every other day, do stretches and resistance exercises using bands or your own body weight. Then, think about going for 300 minutes of exercise a week and 10,000 steps (or the equivalent) daily. As Arnold says: “If you don’t find the time, if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the results.”